11 1 564
Everyday Life in
The New Stone, Bronze &
Early Iron Ages
. Quennett
1. Everyday Life in the Old Stone Age
2. Everyday Life in the New Stone, Bronze, and Early
Iron Ages
Everyday Life iii thte
New Stone, Bronze &
Early Iron Ages
Written and Illustrated by
Marjorie and C. H. B* Quennell
Authors of " Everyday Things in England "
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons
London: B. T. Batsford Ltd.
Copyright, 1923
by
Marjorie Quennefl
and
C. H. B. Quennefl
Second printing, October, 1031
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must
not be reproduced in any form without permission.
**FOB lie who would proceed aright in this matter
should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms;
and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright,
to love one such form only out of that he should
create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself
perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to
the beauty of another; and then, if beauty of
form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would
he be not to recognize that the beauty in every
form is one and the same."
From the speech of Socrates,
Symposium of Plato.
Design by P. C. Q.
INTRODUCTION
THIS book presents only an outline, but we hope
that as such it will give our readers a broad view of
certain principles which have governed the work of
man. One of the first facts to be understood is that
man when beginning very wisely models his work on
something which has gone before. We can test this
by thinking of the first motor-car, which was like
a horse-drawn carriage with an engine under the
driver's seat, only without the horse. The first
train was a string of stage-coaches linked up to
"Puffing Billy." We call the man who is re-
sponsible for maintaining the power in a modern
engineering shop, a millwright, because he is the
lineal descendant of the man who first produced
vii
Introduction
power, by making wind and water mills. If we go
back to prehistoric times, we find that the bronze
celt, or axe, was at first of the same shape as the
stone one which had preceded it. Having made a
start, by the adoption of a new material in an old
form, man very soon discovers its possibilities and
thus progress is made. History, then, cannot
afford to neglect all these points of contact, which
link up the development of man, nor the influence
which his work has had on man. It is a long tale,
that goes back to the time when the man of Java
descended to the foot of his tree, and standing up-
right, walked abroad to play the part of man.
Another point to be borne in mind is that all
work in its designs and construction is closely
related. Nowadays, the specialist tries to shut off
one trade from another in water-tight compart-
ments; but when we come to a proper understand-
ing of the matter, we shall find that, if we have the
science of knowledge, the art of performance is
not so much a mystery as some would make it.
It may seem strange to suggest a wide view at an
early stage, but how else can one see life as a whole,
and determine what we are going to do. We shall,
later on, talk much of the Hills, because in the time
.
vm
Introduction
we are writing about men lived on the Hills. To
live on the hilltops is good, for as we walk along the
old trackways, we can look down on the flat vales,
and see the white roads winding through the corn-
fields, and the villages clustered round the churches,
We get a fine idea of the lie of the land; there may
be a grubby patch on the horizon, where the smoke
of on industrial town poisons its inhabitants; we
will not go that way. So resting on the hillside now,
we can map out our path, because once we are in
the vale, among the trees, and in the villages, we
shall be caught up in the throng, and lose our sense
of direction. Our work, then, is to present in these
books an outline of knowledge, which may lead to
specialization later on. Before we pass to the sub-
ject-matter of this book, we should like to give a
reminder that when we talk of the Old Stone or
Palaeolithic Age, the New Stone or Neolithic Age,
followed by those of Bronze and Early Iron, we are
using terms invented by the archaeologists to de-
note various stages in the development of man.
We have to think of man's development, pro-
ceeding continuously, though not always improving
or progressing. We found out in Part I. that man
is rather like a tree. The race has periods of youth,
IX
Introduction
and passes by way of flower, to fruition, and then
decay, but always there is the promise of re-birth,
so that the morsel of achievement which Nature
deems worthy to survive may be carried on. With-
out this promise, life would be dismal, if we had not
the hope that all will come right in the end the
larger view of history would bring nothing but
discouragement. We must therefore be prepared
for periods when the gods seem to nod and slumber,
and little progress is made. There are other periods,
like the one we are living in to-day, when the
miseries and suffering, caused by a Great War,
can only be remedied by a determined effort on
the part of all the people, to be decent and kindly,
and to do good work.
We must bear in mind, in dealing with this
Neolithic period, that moving impulses in the direc-
tion of progress will be born out of favourable
conditions, and will come from intelligent peoples
in some particular place, and that the impulse will
spread from this to other parts of the world, so
that one part of Europe, for example, will be ahead
of another, and the movements and periods will
overlap. Bronze may have been introduced in one
place, while in another stone was still employed.
Introduction
Another reminder must be that we are still, even
up to the end of the Early Iron Age, and the coming
of the Romans, for aU practical purposes, so far as
Britain is concerned, in the prehistoric period, so
called because it deals with all that time before
there were written histories. We shall find then in
the New, as in the Old Stone Age, that our histo-
rians are of the pick and shovel variety, because
they have actually to dig in mother earth for the
remains of man and his works.
Having discovered Neolithic man and his simple
apparatus for living, we shall have to do what we
did in Part I., search for modern primitive races, as
a model of what prehistoric life may have been like.
Here we must be careful that our models are real
primitives, and not degraded races, and there is all
the difference in the world. The real savage is very
frequently a person with unexpected virtues and
cleverness, and a moral and spiritual code which is
found to be admirably suited to his surroundings.
We discovered this of the Australian native,
through Messrs. Spencer & Gillen's books, to which
we referred in Part I. In this book we have drawn
on an admirable account of a gifted people, the
Akikuyu of British East Africa, given in a book by
Introduction
Mr. and Mrs. Routledge, which we recommend to
our readers.
These people are quite different from those tribes
who, often by contact with the worst sides of our
civilization, have become hangers-on, and so have
fallen from high estate. Frequently it is this latter
type which is first thought of, so we implore our
readers to clear their minds of any such misconcep-
tion, and think of early man as being the child of
mankind, on the threshold of the world's life, with
all that it held before him, testing its possibilities,
and trying conclusions with it.
Again, there is the effect of emigration to be
considered. To-day, if a tramp determines that
instead of starving here he will go to America, and
make his fortune, he shows that he is of a pluckier
type than the tramp he leaves behind, and he is of
more use to America than the one remaining here
is to us.
The development of man has depended on the
struggle for existence, and the quality of the fight
wrhich he puts up against his difficulties. The more
ririle the types which a country possesses, the
greater progress it will make.
Our early immigrants, the Mediterranean men,
311
Introduction
the Bronze Age men, the Brythons, and the Belgae,
of whom we shall tell in this book, were of great
value to our country, and all played their part in
its development.
We must try to appreciate this idea of movement
and energy. We must think of man as a worrying
individual, consumed by curiosity, and always
trying experiments; failing dismally and losing
heart; trying again, and meeting with some little
success which spurs him on. His inspiration is like
the pale flame of the will-o'-the-wisp; sometimes it
leaps up and burns brightly, at others dies down,
but always it eludes him, and never can be grasped.
If you come to think about it, this is just as it
should be, because perfection is finality.
We should like to thank Mr. Reginald Smith,
F.S.A., Deputy-Keeper of the Department of
British and Mediaeval Antiquities at the British
Museum, for help given to us while we were making
our drawings, and also for reading through our MS.
and making many suggestions which we feel have
added to the value of the book.
Our thanks are due also to our publishers, Mr.
Harry Batsford, and to Mr. A. E. Doyle, who have
been of constant assistance, and many other friends
xiii
Introduction
have helped. Mr. R. E. Webb discovered the Pole
Lathe (Pig. 78), and Mr. B. A. Norris the Potter's
Wheel (Fig. 87).
MAEJOEIE and C. H. B. QUENNELL.
BBBKHAMSTED, HBBTS,
August, 1922.
SHORT LIST OP AUTHORITIES
TITLE OF BOOK
Ancient Stone Imple-
ments
AUTHOR
John Evans
Guide to the Antiquities
of the Stone Age British Museum
Guide to the Antiquities
of the Bronze Age British Museum
Guide to the Antiquities
of the Early Iron Age British Museum
Rough Stone Monu-
ments T. Eric Feet
Earthworks of England A. H. Allcroft
Ancient Earthworks J. Charles Wall
Manuel dArcheologie D6chelette
The Racial History of
ike British People H. J. Fleure
Bronze Age
Settlements O. G. S. Crawford
The Races of Europe William Z. Riplcy
The Races of Britain John Beddoe
Wtih a Prehistoric
People Mr. and Mrs. Boutledge
XV
PUBLISHER
Longmans, Green?
Reader & Dyer,
1872
1911
1920
1905
Harper & Brothers,
1912
Macmfllan, 1908
Talbot, 1908
Alphonse Picard et
Fils, 1908
Geographical Re-
view, vol. v., No.
3. March, 1918
Geographical Jour-
nal, vol. xl., No. 3.
Sept., 1912
Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trfibner
& Co., 1900
Trtibner & Co.,
1885
Edward Arnold,
1910
Short List of Authorities
TITLE OF BOOK
The lake-Dwellings of
Europe
Ancient Britain
The New Stone Age in
Northern Europe
AUTHOR
Robert Munro
T. Rice Holmes
John M. Tyler
Alone in the Wilderness Joseph Knowles
Various Numbers of
The Reliquary
Stonehenge
The Dawn of History
The Qlastonbury Lake
Village
Frank Stevens
J. L. Myres
Bulleid and Gray
The Green Roads of
England R. Hippisley Cox
Beisen in Lykien und
Karien Benndorf und Niemann
Early British Track-
ways
Alfred Watkins
Primitive Looms H. Ling Roth
Ancient Egyptian and
Greek Looms W. Ling Roth
Story of a Homespun
Web
The Iliad of Homer
Mrs. Godfrey Blount
Lang, Leaf, and Myres
Celtic Myth and Legend Charles Squire
XVI
PUBLISHER
Cassell & Co., 1890
Clarendon Press,
1907
G. Bell & Sons,
1921
Longmans, Green &
Co., 1914
H. M. Stationery
Office, 1919
Williams fcNorgate,
1911
Glastonbury Anti
quarian Society,
1911
Methnen, 1914
Carl Geralds Sohn,
1884
Simpkin, Marshall,
Hamilton, Kent
& Co., 1922
F. King & Sons
Halifax, 1918
F. King & Sons,
Halifax, 1913
J. M. Dent & Sons
Globe Ed. Mac-
mfllan, 1919
Gresham Publish-
ing Co.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE NEW STONE AGE .... 3
Before the New Stone Age Kitchen Middens Migrations-
Geographical Conditions The Naked Chalk Trackways
Camps Iberiana Celtic and Nordic Men Aryan-speak-
ing People Flint Implements Cores Flakes Axes
Arrows Huts Hut Circles Fires Cooking Corn
Cakes Pots Pans Earthworks Fortification Gate-
waysWater Life in the Wild Trapping Civil En-
gineering Long Barrows Tombs Houses Towers
Bough Stone Monuments Leverage Wedges Building
Stonehenge Sun Temples Nature Worship.
H. THE BRONZE AGE 102
Bronze-Smelting Swords and Spears Heathery Burn
Spinning Looms Weaving Costume Razors
Wheels Communications Harvest Pottery Burial
Barrows Hector Patroklos Trade Trade Routes
Migrations Tin Trackways Conditions of Life.
m. THE EARLY IRON AGE .... 163
Lake Dwellings Glastonbury Huts St. Paul's Cathe-
dralDavid Cox Ploughs Smelting Knives Tools-
Brooches Lathes The Axe Iberians Boats Spears
Enamels Chariots Burials Trackways Surveying
Currency Bars Conditions of Life Celtic Legends.
INDEX 235
Wll
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. PAGE
1. WARRIORS AND CHARIOT OF THE EARLY IRON
AGE .... Frontispiece
2. THE LINCES, CHEDDINGTON, BUCKS. . . 7
3. MAP SHOWING BRITISH ROAD SYSTEM, LEVELS,
CHALK, MINERALS, AND CURRENCY BARS . 13
CHART 25
4. DANISH MIDDEN AXE 7
5. CAMPS ON PITSTONE AND IVINGHOE HILL, BUCKS 19
6. DUG-OUT CANOE 7
7. MEDITERRANEAN OR IBERIAN MAN ... 7
8. ALPINE OR CELTIC MAN 81
9. THE NORDIC MAN 31
10. FLINT MINERS 87
11. DEERHORN IMPLEMENT .... 31
12. DEERHORN IMPLEMENT 31
IS. FLINT FLAKE AND CORE 31
14. HAPTING OP FLINT IMPLEMENTS ... 37
xix
Illustrations
FIG. PAGE
15. STONE AXES AND HAMMERS 48
16. FLINT SPEAR AND ARROW HEADS ... 43
17. PIT DWELLING 43
18. PLAN OP HUT 43
19. NEOLITHIC HUT 49
20. STRIKE-A-LIGHT 55
21. FLINT SICKLE 49
22. GRINDING CORN 55
23. POUNDING GRAIN 55
24. NEOLITHIC POT 55
25. MAKING POTTERY 55
26. POTTERY SPOON 61
27. PLAN OF BADBURY RINGS, WIMBORNE, DORSET . 61
28. THE EASTERN GATE AT BADBURY RINGS . . 73
29. THE BANKS AT BADBURY RINGS ... 67
30. A DEW POND 61
31. A DEADFALL TRAP 79
82. NEOLITHIC LONG BARROW .... 61
33. EARTH HOUSE, USINISH, SOUTH UIST, HEBRIDES 79
34. PICTS HOUSE, SUTHERLAND .... 79
35. ESKIMO ROCK HUT 85
36. ESKIMO SNOW HOUSE 85
XX
Illustrations
PIG. PAGE
37. Piers TOWER 79
88. A DOLMEN 85
39. A MENHIR 85
40. THE LAWS OP LEVERAGE .... 91
41. MEGALITHIC BUILDERS AT WORE ... 91
42. PLAN OF STONEHENGE 91
43. STONEHENGE 97
44. SUNRISE ON MIDSUMMER DAY AT STONEHENGE 103
45. HAFTING or PALSTAVE AND SOCKETED CEI/T . 109
46. DEVELOPMENT OF BRONZE CELT . . . 109
47. DEVELOPMENT OF BRONZE SPEAR . . . 115
48. A LEAF-SHAPED SWORD .... 121
49. A BRONZE AGE SMITH 115
50. BRONZE BROOCH AND PIN .... 121
51. SPINNING 121
52. WARP-WEIGHTED LOOM OF SIMPLEST TYPE . 121
53. WARP-WEIGHTED LOOM OF MORE DEVELOPED
TYPE 127
54. COMB 121
55. SHAVING WITH BRONZE RAZOR . . .121
56. COSTUME OF THE NEW STONE, BRONZE, AND
EARLY IRON AGES 133
xxi
Illustrations
FIG. PAGB
57. BEIDLB AND GOLD PETTBBL .... 139
58. WOODEN WHEELS 195
59. CELTIC BRIDGE 145
60. PLOUGH 157
61. BRONZE AGE ORNAMENT .... 151
62. BRONZE AGE POTTERY 157
63. BRONZE AGE BARROWS 165
64. TRAFFIC AND TRADE ROUTES . . . .165
65. GLASTONBURT LAKE VILLAGE . . . 171
66. HUT INTERIOR AT GLASTONBURT . . .177
67. HUT SECTIONS 195
68. BUILDING A HUT AT GLASTONBURT . . .183
69. DUG-OUT CANOE AND LANDING-STAGE AT GLAS-
TONBURT 189
70. PLOUGHING 157
71. GRINDING CORN 195
72. SMELTING IRON 195
73. SAW AND ADZE 199
74. AN IRON KNIFE 199
75. BRONZE FINGER-RING 199
76. PENANNULAR BROOCH 199
77. BROOCHES AND BROOCH SPRINGS . . . 211
.
3311
Illustrations
FIG. PAGE
78. A POLE LATHE 203
79. DICE 199
80. CORACLES 207
81. FRAMEWORK OF UMIAK 211
88. ESKIMO UMIAK 211
83. A SEWN BARK CANOE 215
84. EARLY IRON AGE SWORDS AND SPEARS . . 215
85. ENAMELLED HARNESS ORNAMENT . . . 215
86. THE BRONZE MIRROR 215
87. A POTTER'S WHEEL 219
88. WATER CLOCK 219
89. LATE CELTIC PATTERNS .... 223
90. CURRENCY BARS 219
EVERYDAY LIFE
IN
THE NEW STONE, BRONZE &
EARLY IRON AGES
EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE
NEW STONE, BRONZE
& EARLY IRON AGES
CHAPTER I
THE NEW STONE AGE
BEFORE THE NEW STONE AGE
BEFORE we start with the doings of the men of
the Neolithic or New Stone Age, it may be as well
to give our readers a reminder of the periods which
are associated with the Palaeolithic or Old Stone
Age with which we dealt in Part I.
We started with the period of the River Drift, so
called because of the flint implements found in the
gravels deposited by rivers. Man lived on the
banks of the Thames up to Oxford; along the Lea
to the Dunstable area; around the Solent and Avon
in Hampshire, and the Wey at Farnham, and on an
3
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
area in E. Anglia, bounded by Thetford, Hoxne,
Bury St. Edmunds, Mildenhall, and Lakenheath.
Then we came to a period when men lived in
caves, like Kent's Cavern and Brixham Cave, N.
and S. of Tor Bay, Wookey Hole in Somerset,
Cresswell Caves in Derbyshire, and others in
Wales.
Finally we saw how, at the end of the Old Stone
Age, man seemed to have been drawn, or driven,
to the water. The early Neolithic people, called
Azilian, after Mas d'Azil (France), lived on great
rafts anchored in the middle of lakes, as at Magle-
mose, Denmark. At Oban in Scotland, Azilian
deposits were found in a cave opening on to a sea-
beach. This Azilian civilization is the first of
which we have any evidence in Scotland during the
Old Stone Age, and we must not forget that the
Northern part of Great Britain was covered with
ice during the Glacial periods, and probably was
too bleak and desolate in the Interglacial periods
to attract settlers, until the ice had finally retreated
in early Neolithic times. France was always
ahead of us in civilization, because the greater
part of it was never glaciated.
At Oban were found the bones of large sea fish,
4
The New Stone Age
red deer, goat, pig, and many other animals, and
the life led there must have resembled that which
we trace in the Kitchen Middens on the Danish
coast. These middens are of the greatest interest,
because they belong mostly to the earliest Neolithic
period, and it is here that we shall start this, Part
II. of our series.
THE KITCHEN MIDDEN PEOPLE
A midden is a rubbish heap, and in Denmark
these mounds are sometimes 100 yards long, by
50 wide, by 1 high, and were formed of the refuse
of the meals and life of prehistoric man. They
are labelled there with the splendid name of
Kjokkenmoddinger, and are largely formed of oyster
shells, with the bones of stag, roe-deer, and wild
boar. The long bones have been cracked to ex-
tract the marrow. The people do not appear to
have grown any crops, or domesticated any
animals, except the dog, so they had not made any
great advances on the civilization of the Old Stone
Age. It must have been the pleasant loafing life
of the beach-comber. The sea when it is angry
casts up all kinds of edible flotsam, and in kindlier
mood, at low tide, early Neolithic man could hunt
5
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
over the rocks, as we do to-day during our sum-
mer holidays, and find lobster and crab, oyster and
mussel, prawns and shrimps, and the humble
winkle.
We find the remains of similar people, and their
shell heaps, in different parts of the British Isles,
and at the British Museum, in the Prehistoric
Boom, are flints from the Castle Hill at Hastings.
These people must have possessed dugout canoes,
or skin-covered boats, with which to go fishing,
and probably used harpoons like the Old Stone
Age men. It may well be that, as their flint im-
plements were rough and not very effective, they
were forced to the seaside by the encroaching
forests. As the weather improved, after the Ice
Ages, the trees grew, and man could not as
yet make sufficient clearings in which to start
agriculture.
The evidence that we can gain, points to this dim
beginning of the Neolithic period, some 7000 to
10,000 years ago, as a time when the world was
gathering its forces. The Old Stone Age cul-
minated in the wonderful flint work of Solutr6,
and the Magdalenian paintings; after that came
decline. The old hunters followed in the track of
6
FIG. 2. The Linces, Cheddington, Bucks.
FIG. 6. Dug-out Canoe.
FIG. 4. Danish Mid-
den Axe.
FIG. 7. Mediterranean or Iberian
Man.
The New Stone Age
the Mammoth and the Reindeer, and reached
northern latitudes, where their successors of to-
day, the Eskimo, live. They left behind them the
less virile types, and the early midden people lived,
one thinks, in rather a kitchen atmosphere without
the wit to mend their ways.
Then wise men came out of the East, and later
we shall try to show how we in England were af-
fected by these migrations. There were kings in
Egypt as early as 4500 B.C., and the Mediterranean,
which had seen the Cr6-Magnon, and GrimaJdi
men, in the Old Stone Age, was to see these others
who, coming from the East, or South-East, in the
New Stone Age, were to press along to the cry of
"Westward Ho," and build up new civilizations.
Whether the midden people died out, or were
stimulated by these new-comers we cannot be sure.
They had domesticated the dog, and it may have
occurred to them to do the same with other animals,
and so save themselves the trouble of hunting.
This we find is the next step; man became a
herdsman, and had flocks to tend. This added to
his responsibilities; while as hunter, or beach-
comber, his cares were few, he must have found that
with possessions his troubles began. It was neces-
9
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
sary to find pasture for the little flock, and in the
winter, no matter how hard the times were, he must
keep alive some few to carry on the strain; the
animals needed guarding at night; better pots and
pans were necessary for storing milk, and in a hun-
dred ways he was moved to bestir and adapt
himself to the new conditions which arose out of
becoming a man of property.
We will now turn to the geographical condi-
tions which confronted Neolithic man in England,
and the bearing which these had on his mode of
living, and the necessity that he was under of
finding pasture for his flocks.
In the Old Stone Age, men walked across dry
land where the Straits of Dover are now (see p. 28,
Pt. I.) ; but as the waters rose after the last Ice Age,
the isthmus across got smaller and smaller, until
England was completely severed. It is probable
that this did not occur until some time after the
beginning of the New Stone Age, and even then the
Channel would not have been so wide as it is now
for a long time. This was, and still is, the great
gate into England; here have passed men of the
Old and New Stone Ages, Iberians, Goidels, Bry-
thons, Belgee and Romans, Saxons, Danes, and
10
The New Stone Age
Normans. There have been, and are to-day, other
routes, but none that can compare with the southern
end of Watling Street.
We have drawn our map (Fig. 3) because we
want our readers to bear in mind the physical
characteristics of England; its shape, its mountains
and rivers; where are the watersheds and the
marshy ground. As we are going to add to this
map, in each part of the series, we have drawn
an England as we know it now, but readers will
remember that constant alteration has brought it
to its present shape. Thanet has been an island,
and the Lympne Flats under water. The Wash
and Fens were unreclaimed, and the East Coast by
Dunwich has been steadily eaten away; there have
been alterations along the South Coast and by
the Isle of Wight.
In the early Neolithic days, men could stand in
Gaul and look across to Kent, and say, "There is
another land there like our own; there also can we
walk dry foot on the hills, and find pasture for our
beasts. The grass is growing brown here, let us
go and see what the country is like/'
On our map (Fig. 3) we have shown the chalk,
and it will be noticed how closely Neolithic man
11
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
kept to it. We might call them the Men of the
Rolling Downs.
A drought in these early days would have led to
great migrations, and the pressure from behind
have forced the men on the coast to make the great
adventure. The Old Testament contains the finest
pictures of nomadic herdsmen. In Genesis xiii.
we read how Abram and Lot returned out of Egypt,
and there was strife between their herdsmen, be-
cause the land was not able to bear them, and
Abram said to Lot, "Is not the whole land before
thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if
thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the
right."
When the first Neolithic men arrived here, they
would have found excellent pasture then, as now,
on the Downs, and flint for their tools. They
would have moved along the line of the old road
later called the Pilgrims' Way, on the escarpment
of the North Downs, secure from wolf or man. We
find to-day traces of Neolithic man on this road;
there is Kitscoty to the N. W. of Maidstone; the
Coldrum monument to the W. on the other side of
the Medway; the pit-dwellings in Rose Wood near
Ighthain, all dating from the New Stone Age.
12
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
to have coasted round until they came to the
chalk at Eastbourne. They would have set out in
their dug-out canoes, as Fig. 6, and some of these
have been found as long as 50 feet. On the South
Downs again are earthworks and tumuli, linked
up by trackways leading to Stonehenge. Others
came in at the Wash, which in these days extended
to where the chalk is shown on our map, and here
Icknield Way goes S. to the Goring Gap on the
Thames, and then by way of the Berkshire Downs
again to Stonehenge. Later on Maiden Castle,
near Dorchester, and its connection with the track-
ways, points to traffic and trade by sea. The range
of Neolithic man seems to have been the Downs,
the Blackdown Hills to Devon and Cornwall,
the Mendips, the Cotswolds to the Northamp-
ton Heights, the South Pennines and Lincolnshire
Hills, the Yorkshire Wolds and Moors, and the
Glamorgan Hills, and all these parts are connected
by trackways which converge on Salisbury Plain
and Stonehenge, which appears to have been the
richest part of England in the Neolithic, and Bronze
Ages, and the seat of such spiritual and civil
government as there was.
Jt should be noted that the trackways follow
16
The New Stone Age
the watersheds, and so avoid the crossing of rivers
a serious obstacle to flocks and herds. On the
other hand, the great river valleys have formed
avenues of approach for immigrants into the
country, and the fact that so many of these are on
the East Coast, has rendered us peculiarly liable
to invasion on that side. The tide runs up the
Humber and Ouse nearly to York; up the Trent
just beyond Gainsborough, and the Thames to
Teddington.
We must think, then, of a gradual penetration of
the country, in Neolithic times, along the various
routes we have indicated, which in the end became
established traffic lines because of their conveni-
ence. The first rough stockades and earthworks
on the trackways would have developed as time
went on into the hill forts we find to-day. In the
later days there must have been a more ordered
system of government than any tribal law which
had gone before. This is forced on us by the size
of the works which these people carried out, and
which could only have been possible to a people
content to accept some form of control.
We must bear in mind that when we talk of the
Neolithic period, we mean a state of existence
* 17
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
which is supposed to have lasted in this country
not less than 3000 years and probably longer, that
is, from about 5000 or even 8000 B.C. to 2000 B.C.,
and it may have started considerably earlier. To
realize what a very long time this was, we must re-
member that only 1922 years have elapsed since
the birth of Christ to our own days. Neolithic
man, then, had plenty of time for the gradu-
al beginnings which led up to the civilization of the
hill forts of the trackways. Boys and girls should
endeavour to see these. In our part of the world
there is Icknield Way, with a contour camp on
Beacon Hill, the Maiden's Bower, and Totternhoe.
From Oxford you can take a 'bus to Wantage, the
birthplace of Alfred, and from there climb onto the
Ridgeway which runs along the Berkshire Downs.
Cissbury is close to Worthing, and Maiden Castle
not far from Weymouth, and every one should see
Stonehenge. There is no more inspiring thing to
do than walk along these trackways, which were
old roads before the dawn of History as it is
generally understood. If the day is hot, rest for a
little while under a thorn, and then, perhaps, if you
can dream dreams, and see visions, you may be
able to join in spirit a party of Neolithic hunters
18
The New Stone Age
or herdsmen journeying from fort to fort. It will
be much more amusing than reading books, yet
give your History a new meaning.
EUROPEAN RACES
Perhaps, before we examine the works of Neo-
lithic man in more detail, it will be as well to try and
find out something about him, and the European
Races during the Neolithic, Bronze, and Early Iron
Ages. We can refer to ourselves as Anglo-Saxons
or Britons, and yet be very wide of the mark. As-
suming that we were cruising over Great Britain in
an airplane, we could in a few days cover the length
and breadth of the land, and if we kept our eyes
open when we landed, we should find very varying
types in our own country, except perhaps in the
industrial areas which are pitiful conglomerations
of misery.
In parts of Essex, and the South Midlands and
Chilterns; on the hills to the W. of the Severn in
Worcestershire, Shropshire, and Herefordshire; in
Romney Marsh, the Weald, and the Isle of Ely, we
should find a large proportion of dark-haired people
with long heads and the explanation of this is that
as these parts were off the main lines of Saxon
21
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
immigration, the old British blood has lingered on.
The Saxons penetrated into the country on the
line of the Thames, and this element is strong in
Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Sussex, and up
the Thames Valley to the Cotswolds; here you will
find fair people with blue eyes. In Leicestershire
and Lincolnshire are Danish types with long faces,
and heads rather high behind; high cheek-bones,
and well-formed noses; they appear to have driven
the Anglians to the Derbyshire hills in olden days.
In Yorkshire we should find a typically English
people; shrewd, vigorous, and obstinate; successful
in business; hard-headed and practical, yet with a
great love of music. In tjhe Shetlands, Orkneys,
Hebrides, and parts of Caithness are splendid men
of Norwegian descent. In the Highlands a Gaelic
stock, quick-tempered and emotional; in the Low-
lands, and the eastern coast-lands, a frugal hard-
working people descended from Angles, Danes,
and immigrants from the E.
It is obvious, then, that our own island provides
us with some very fair samples of the European
races, and if we are to understand our own history,
or must discover where these types have come from,
this means crossing to the mainland.
The New Stone Age
The European Races have been divided into
three large families or groups. The Nordic, Al-
pine, and Mediterranean, and the history of Eu-
rope is a recital of the migrations and minglings of
these types. Nordic means Northern, and this
type is sometimes called Teutonic; these people
came from the steppe region to the N. of the
mountains between Europe and Asia. As the
climate improved after the last Ice Age this be-
came forest. The people were tall and strong-
boned, with fair hair and blue eyes, and they were
long-headed.
The Alpine people came from the mountain
zone of Europe; they were thick-set, and round-
headed.
The Mediterranean or Iberian men came from
the coast-lands of that sea; they were dark, long
headed, with oval faces and aquiline noses; of
middle height, not more than 5 feet 6 inches, and
the women shorter and not very robust.
The Nordic and Mediterranean types were
probably descendants of the old long-headed
people of the Old Stone Age, and the Alpine later
arrivals from the E.
It is to the Mediterranean stock that we must
23
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
look for the first of the Neolithic people in this
country. It is thought that working along the
coast-lands of the W. part of the Mediterranean
they struck up through the Carcassonne Gap be-
tween the Pyrenees and the Cevennes, at 1 (Fig.
64), and thence by way of 2, 3, through the W.
of France until they came to Brittany and Nor-
mandy, then worked along the coast until they
came to where the Straits of Dover now are. Re-
member this was not done in a day, or many days,
but was a movement lasting for hundreds of years.
The later Mediterranean or Iberian people were
the builders of the Megalithic monuments; the
menhirs, dolmens, and chambered barrows which
culminated in Stonehenge, and spread from India,
across to W. Europe and our own land. Megalithic
is derived from two Greek words, megas, great and
Iifhos 9 stone, and its most distinctive contribution
to the art of building was the evolution of the
lintel; in this detail it was allied to Egyptian and
Greek building. Stonehenge is the triumph of the
lintel, and the general assumption is that it dates
from the end of the Neolithic or the beginning of
the Bronze Age.
These Neolithic dolmen builders retreated before
4
The New Stone Age
the round-headed Bronze men, who seem to have
come from the Eastern Mediterranean, through
Gaul to Britain. They were stalwart, dark, broad-
headed men, and arrived here about 2000 B.C.
It is thought that these earliest round-heads
were not Goidels, and we will explain this later.
It is quite possible that they may have had some-
thing to do with megalithic building, as they as-
sociated with the Neolithic long-heads; we know
this, because in the round barrows, which are of
Bronze Age, round and long-heads are found
buried together. The Bronze men brought with
them their flat bronze celts, as, Fig. 46, and if at
the first they could not manufacture these they
did obtain them by trade.
About the same time the "Beaker" people ar-
rived on the N. and E. coasts. They are called
"Beaker" because of a pottery-drinking vessel, as
(1, Fig. 62), which they used. They did not use
bronze, or introduce it. They came from around
Kiev on the Dnieper (7, Fig. 64), to the S. of tie
Pinsk Marshes, and then on the line 8, 9, 10, not
in a month or a year, but gradually, as their num-
bers increased and they were forced to find new
territory in fact, just as men in recent days have
27
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
gone to America to make their fortunes. These
Beaker men were a mixture of Alpine and Nordic,
combining the broad heads of the Alpine with
the fair colouring, strength and length of bone of
the Nordic. They were tall and strong-browed.
About this time we are able to find out that
the conditions of life were becoming easier. The
people lived longer lives, they were bigger than in
Neolithic times, and there was less difference
between the size of men and women.
THE COMING OF THE CELTS
At a later day, perhaps, about 700 to 500 B.C.,
the first of the Goidels, Gaels, or Celts arrived;
they were an Aryan-speaking people who burned
their dead. Here we might explain what is meant
by the Aryan-speaking peoples, because the spread
of this language is one of the wonderful things in
the world's history, like the Magdalenian painting.
The Aryan language is also described as being
Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, and Indo-Gennanic.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, simi-
larities were noticed in the construction of lan-
'guages seemingly so different as Sanscrit, Greek,
Latin, German, and Celtic, and later all the Eu-
28
The New Stone Age
ropean languages, except Turkish, Finnic, and one
or two others, were added, with some modern
Indian languages, to a group which has been de-
rived from this primitive Aryan tongue. This
does not mean that all the millions of Aryan-
speaking people to-day are descended from Aryan
stock; what it does point to is some wonderful idea
which spread across Europe like a flame burning
dry grass.
The exact spot where the original Aryans lived
is still a matter of debate: one idea is that it
was in South Russia or Hungary; another, on the
Iranian plateau to the S.E. of the Caspian Sea.
From there the language spread S.E. across the
Indus into India. The route to Europe may have
been to the E. of the Caspian Sea, and then W.
across the Volga, Don, and Dnieper, to 7 (Fig.
64), whence came the Beaker people. Or N.W.
from the Iranian plateau, and S. of the Black Sea
into Asia Minor and the JSgean. Now language
does not spread as a fashion, but because it is
the vehicle of thought embodying a dominating
idea.
The diffusion of the Aryan language coincided
with great changes and migrations of the European
29
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
peoples. The old Neolithic civilization had carried
men forward as a tribe, and in a state which did not
offer much opportunity to the individual. While
the pioneer work was being done, the adventurous
men had plenty to occupy them, and then may
have become restless as conditions became more
settled, and have seized power, not necessarily
from a selfish point of view, but to satisfy wider
ambitions and to obtain more movement and
colour in life. We come to the Age of Heroes.
The chieftain, or patriarch of the tribe, has to give
way to the hero, who welds it into a nation and
becomes a king. Again it may have been the work
of a great prophet with some new message for the
souls of men, and this view is borne out by the
pregnant fact that man now begins to burn his
dead instead of burying them.
These Goidels, the first of the Celtic, Aryan-
speaking people to reach our shores, were the fore-
runners of the Irish, Manx, and Highlanders.
About 450 B.C. the Brythons, or Britons, began
to arrive. They were long-headed, and the fore-
runners of the Welsh, Cornish, and Breton peoples.
They were not unlike the later Anglo-Saxons, men
of strong build and fair hair, and may have arisen
SO
PIG. 8. Alpine or Celtic Man.
FIG. 9. The Nordic Man.
FIG. ii.
Deerhorn Im-
plement.
FIG. 13. Flint Flake and Core,
The New Stone Age
from a mingling of Alpine and Nordic types.
They introduced iron into S.E. Britain, and
drove the Bronze civilization into the W. and
Ireland. Theirs was the Kymric form of the Celtic
language.
About 200 B.C. came the Belgee, of the same ex-
traction as the Brythons, and Caesar found them
in the possession of the S.E. districts.
FLINT IMPLEMENTS
Having now given an outline sketch of the va-
rious peoples we shall meet with in this book, we
will go back to the first of these, the men of the
New Stone Age. We will examine first their im-
plements, and then later consider the work they
did with these tools. These Neolithic implements
are not necessarily of polished stone, as some people
seem to think. Flint was still chipped as in the
Old Stone Age: sometimes it was chipped and
ground, or polished in parts; sometimes completely
so. We can give only a few of the more typical im-
plements, and we strongly recommend our readers
to pay a visit to the Prehistoric Room of the Brit-
ish Museum, where the endless variety of the im-
plements can be studied in detail. Neolithic
3 83
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
implements are found on the surface of the ground
or just under it, and are not dug out of gravel as
those of the Old Stone Age are.
When our readers pass on to the standard text-
books of archaeology, they will be meeting con-
stantly such terms as nucleus or core, flake, and
bulb or percussion. It may be as well to explain
these. Flint is dug out of the chalk in separate
blocks or nodules complete in themselves; not cut
out of a mass, as in the case of stone and rock. At
Cissbury near Worthing, and Grimes' Graves
near Brandon in Norfolk, the pits formed by the
early miners to obtain their flints have been dis-
covered, and it is thought the implements were
roughly finished here for export. They used deer-
horn picks, and shoulder-blades as shovels, as Fig.
10. These can be seen in the Prehistoric Room at
the British Museum, with horn punches and chisels,
as Figs. 11 and 12. The flints have a white skin
called the crust, and the old men often left part of
this on the implement. Remember they had not
any metal hammers, and that a rounded pebble was
used instead. The first step was to knock off the
top of the nodule, so as to provide a flat table at
A, Fig. 13. This tabular surface was held nearly
34
The New Stone Age
at a right angle, and the flaker with his pebble
struck a sharp blow a little back from the edge at
the arrows, on the line of the intended fracture.
By long practice he knew exactly the position and
force of the blow necessary to detach the flake; it is
obvious that he might obtain one of triangular
section from the left-hand arrow as at B; this would
have a mid-rib up its centre, and two keen cutting
edges, and be useful as a knife or lance-head.
From the right-hand arrow he would obtain a flake
with two ribs up the middle; it was this type of
flake, cut up into short lengths, which was used
until recent days for flint-lock guns, and strike-a-
lights. It is becoming increasingly difficult, in
these mechanical days, to appreciate the manual
dexterity of the old workers, who were content to
regard the hand as the most wonderful tool of all.
Try and make a flint implement yourself, but wear
motor goggles to safeguard your eyes, and you
will leave off with a new respect for these old
handicraftsmen.
The block from which the flakes are struck off is
the nucleus or core, and in the Prehistoric Room in
Table Case A, you can see one with all the flakes
replaced. In the Gallery over are cores from
85
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
France called, by the peasants who find them,
limes de beurre, or pounds of butter.
Flint is a curious material, intensely hard, it is
yet rather elastic. When it is struck by the
hammer-stone, the blow detaches the flake with
part of a cone under the point of impact; this Is
the bulb of percussion, and is generally regarded as
a sign of human work on a flint. The implements
resolve themselves into two types. First these
made from the core itself, the flakes being removed
to give the desired shape. Naturally the larger
implements, like the hand-axes in Part I., and the
celts, axes, and hammers, in this part are shaped
cores. In the other type flakes were struck off the
core and were used for knives, lance and arrow
heads, scrapers, borers, and all the little odd tools
which would have been so useful.
Fig. 14 shows a few typical implements, and the
way they were hafted or had handles fitted. A is
the celt, or axe, and is the Neolithic descendant
of the hand-axe of the Old Stone Age. Celts have
been found varying from an inch or so long up to
15 inches or 16 inches, and were the most important
implements of Neolithic man. They were driven
into the head of a wooden handle as at A, and then
J
FIG. 10. Flint Miners.
FIG. 14. Haf ting of Flint Implements.
The New Stone Age
wedged from the top. Sometimes the celt was
fixed into a deer-horn socket driven into the wood.
With celts trees were cut down and all the rough
carpentry done. The stone celt or axe was the
forerunner of the bronze celt, and led to the iron
axe which has been one of the most useful tools to
man throughout the ages. A, Fig. 14, shows a
polished stone celt. These at first were chipped
out of flint. Then the cutting edge was ground,
and finally the whole celt polished. B, Fig. 14,
shows a rougher, unpolished type, hafted at right
angles to the handle for use as an adze; this would
have been used like a hoe to chop towards the foot,
and must have been very useful in making dug-out
canoes. Rougher stones mounted in this way
would have been used as hoes for agriculture.
Neolithic man cultivated the terraces or lynchets
near their encampments, as Fig. 2. For this
method of hafting any branched stick could be
used, and the flint bound on with raw-hide thongs.
C, Fig. 14, shows how a chisel-shaped flake could
be mounted, and D a scraper. Scrapers were as
useful and general in the New, as the Old Stone
Age, and probably served to remove the fat from
skins and to scrape wood. A very usual shape was
39
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
that of an oyster-shell; the Eskimo use these, and
mount them in morse ivory handles, and their
flaying knifes are like the thin oval flakes of green-
stone found in Scotland, and called Pict's knives.
A, Fig. 15, shows a polished stone celt hafted at
right angles for use as an adze. B is a stone axe
with double edge, and C a stone hammer. In
thinking of how these were made we must remem-
ber the extraordinary patience of the savage.
Lafitau, in Moeurs des Sauvages Americains, 1724,
says that a North American Indian would spend
all the leisure of his life in making one stone toma-
hawk, and we may, or may not, consider that a
waste of time.
The Neolithic implement maker used volcanic
rocks for his axes, and after roughly trimming
these to shape, finished by grinding the axe on a
grindstone, not one that turns round, but by
rubbing the axe on a stone, as the carpenter sharp-
ens his plane iron. The boring of the hole was
done last, with a stick, or hollow bone, and sand
and water. Any sand hard enough to scratch the
stone would cut the hole in time. The drill could
have been turned with a bow, as Fig. 47, Part L
Odysseus drills out the eye of the Cyclops by means
40
The New Stone Age
of a stake with a leather thong around it, "like a
shipwright boring timber."
Some of the stone axes have one edge and a
rounded head, and may have been used for split-
ting wood, by hammering the head with a wooden
mallet. Others have a purposely blunted edge, as
if for use as battle-axes, with less chance of cutting
the wielder, and just as much power to damage the
enemy. Amusing traditions have gathered around
the old stone celts; the country people in the past
thought they were thunderbolts. Stone hammers
were known in Scotland, until the end of the
eighteenth century, as Purgatory Hammers, and
were supposed to have been buried with the dead,
so that they could hammer on the gates of Purga-
tory, till the heavenly janitor appeared. Another
point to be remembered, and one which we have
so often emphasized, is that stone continued to be
used after the advent of bronze. Sir William
Wilde, writing in the Catalogue of Stone Antiquities
in ihe Royal Irish Academy Museum, stated, in the
middle of the nineteenth century, that stone
hammers and anvils were used by Irish smiths and
tinkers, until about that time. Again, Sir John
Evans a in Ancient Stone Implements, published in
41
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
1872, says that up till that time flints were sold in
country shops for use with steel to make fixe.
Leaving the larger implements, we can turn to the
lance, javelin, and arrow heads, and the many
things which were made out of the flakes. We
have seen by Fig. 13 how the flaker went to work.
Long flakes up to 8 and 9 inches were possible, and
these were used for lance-heads; shorter ones for
javelins and arrows; thicker and rougher flakes for
scrapers. Having obtained the flakes, the maker
then proceeded to trim these into the desired shape,
by what the archaeologists call secondary flaking.
Some of this, as in the Danish specimen, in Case
134 in the gallery of the Prehistoric Room at the
British Museum, is rippled along the edge of the
implement in a most delightful way. Opinions are
divided as to how this secondary flaking was done.
A flint punch, or fabricator, may have been used;
or the flake held flat, face uppermost on an anvil
stone, may have been trimmed by hammering tiny
flakes off the edge with a hammer-stone. The
Eskimo place the flake over a slight hollow in a log
and then press an ivory tool which spalls off small
flakes. Capt. John Smith, writing in 1606 of the
Indians of Virginia, said, "His arrow-head he
42
FIG. 15. Stone Ases and Hammers.
r
The New Stone Age
maketh quickly with a little bone, which he ever
weareth at his bracert (guard on wrist against bow-
string), of any splint of stone or glasse in the form
of a heart, and these they glew to the end of their
arrowes. With the sinewes of deer and the tops of
deer's horns boiled to a jelly, they make a glew
which will not dissolve in water." This means a
form of mounting as Fig. 16. The arrow-heads
must have called for wonderful handling when
being made. As with the Celts, tradition has
gathered round the arrow-heads, which, until quite
recent times, were called elf -darts by the country
people, who thought that the fairies used them to
injure cattle.
HOUSES
Having seen something of the tools which Neo-
lithic man possessed, we can pass on to the work he
did with these, and will begin with the houses he
built. In Fig. 5 very simple huts are shown which
resemble those of the Old Stone Age shown in Fig.
59, Part I. It is a type which has always been
used by primitive man, and we can remember char-
coal burners in Kent who housed themselves in this
way. This would be the hut, of what is called the
45
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
hut circle, that is, the shallow depressions which are
found in Hayes Common in Kent, and many other
parts of the country. The hole which remains
now is dished out like a saucer, because in the time
which has passed the outer edges have been trodden
down and washed down by the rain. Originally
the hole was dug out and the ground heaped up
around; this would have given headroom inside,
and have taken the place of the vertical walls that
came later on. A central roof -tree supported the
saplings at the top, which, resting on the bank at
the foot formed the roof. A rough thatch com-
pleted the whole. Very much deeper pit dwellings
were formed, as Fig. 17, in the same way, and
these suggest that fear prompted the form of their
construction. It is obvious that this type would
not have been very noticeable to prowling enemy
bands, and the wolf would have hesitated to leap
down into such a trap. The pit dwellings are
thought to be earlier than the shallower huts, and
would only have been possible in a dry soil; this
obtained they would have been warm in winter
and cool in summer. The cooking hearths, as on
Hayes Common, often took the form of small pits
outside the huts. A fire was made in these with
46
The New Stone Age
large stones in it, and the ashes being raked on one
side, the carcase was placed in the pit and covered
over, when the heat of the stones turned the pit
into an oven and cooked the meat. It is very
probable that the accidental introduction of ore
'jvith the fuel into one of these hearths led the
way to metal smelting. The floors of the huts
would have been covered with bracken, like
straw in a stable, and carpet-sweepers were not
needed.
Fig. 18 shows the plan, and Fig. 19 the outside of
an interesting development from Grimspound,
Hambledon, Dartmoor. Here are the remains of
twenty-four huts, surrounded by a double wall
enclosing about 4 acres; quite a little village. The
roofing of the huts was on the same principle as Fig.
17, but of course all this has long since gone. The
plan is interesting because the hut has now devel-
oped a porch or outer parlour at A, which must
have added to the comfort of the inhabitants; at
night it may have been used as a stable. The
house is rising up out of the ground, and has rough
vertical walls; at the entrance the builders selected
upright stones for the door jambs, which are
covered with a stone lintel; this is an important
47
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
detail and links the house up with Stonehenge, as
we shall see later. The hut is about 11 feet
diameter inside, with an inside hearth for the fire
at C, and a cooking-hole at E; there is a raised dais
at D paved with flat stones, about 8 inches higher
than the general floor. Here the family could sit
on bracken and fur rugs in great comfort. The
central roof -tree, supported on a stone at B, would
have been used, like the pole in an army bell-tent
to hang things on. As late as Caesar's time the
Gauls squatted in straw around a low table, and
tore their food like animals, using their fingers and
only occasionally their knives.
Flint thumb-scrapers found in the Dartmoor huts
suggest skin clothing; though weaving appears to
have been started in the Swiss lake dwellings in
Neolithic times, it is doubtful if it started here till
the Bronze Age. Very few ornaments have been
found in long barrows.
Skin clothing does not necessarily mean that
Neolithic men only wore the rough pelts of animals;
we have seen in Pt. I. how the women of the Old
Stone Age could make very good bone needles, and
a visit to the Ethnographical Gallery, at the
British Museum, will show us what beautiful skin
48
PIG. 19. Neolithic Hut.
PIG. 21. Flint Sickle.
The New Stone Age
garments the Eskimo can make. Neolithic gar-
ments may not have been quite as well made as
these, and in Fig. 56 we have shown the man and
woman of this period, on the left of the drawing, in
a simpler type of clothing. The Picts, who were
descendants of the Neolithic men, tattooed them-
selves, so this method of decoration may have gone
back to the New Stone Age.
Fig. 20 shows a way that the Neolithic woman
had of making fire; a piece of flint was used, in
conjunction with a lump of iron pyrites, as a strike-
a-light. Pyrites is found in the lower chalk beds,
and may first have been used as a hammer-stone
on flint, when the resulting sparks would have
suggested its use as Fig. 20. The sparks falling on
dry moss could be blown into flame. Very beauti-
ful flint knives, as Fig. 21, have been found, and it
is thought that these were used as sickles. The
reaper would have gathered the ears of the corn in
one hand, and cut these off as shown. We have
already referred to the lynchets found on the
Downs which are supposed to have been cultivation
terraces. When the corn was cut the threshing
would have been a very simple business, and then
came the grinding into flour. Fig. 22 shows a
51
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
saddle-back quern: the grain was placed on this,
in the hollow made by use, and the upper stone
pushed to and fro until the corn became flour.
Neolithic man would hardly have been able to
obtain yeast, and probably his bread was unleav-
ened, or the flour mixed with honey and baked into
biscuits. Fig. 23 shows a pot quern, like a modern
pestle and mortar, which would have been very
useful for pounding things up. These querns were
made of gritstone, and can be seen at the British
Museum in Wall Case 5 in the Prehistoric Room.
POTTERY
We come now to one of the most important
discoveries of Neolithic man or woman; he or she
found out the way to make pottery. Fig. 24
shows a bowl of thick dark ware made without the
potter's wheel, probably in the same way that the
Akikdyu of British East Africa work to-day.
These people temper their clay by pulling it into
small pieces and freeing it from stones; it is then
dried in the sun, and after mixed with water until
it is plastic. A fine sand is then kneaded into it, in
the proportion of about half and half, and the day
finished in long rolls. One or two of these are
52
The New Stone Age
formed into a collar shape, and with one hand
inside this, and the other out, it is gradually
modelled into the shape of the top half of the pot,
more clay being added in rolls as the work pro-
ceeds. The half pot is allowed to dry in the sun for
some hours, except the lower edge where the join
has to come; this is protected by leaves. This
edge has rested on leaves while the top half was
being made, so that it could be turned more easily,
and this movement must have suggested the
potter's wheel later on. In the next stage this
top half is turned upside down on its already
finished mouth, on more leaves, and the modelling
proceeds as before, more material being added as
required to form the bottom, the shape being given
by one hand in, and the other out, until there is
only room for one finger, and then the hole is closed,
and the pot finished. Again, a few hours are
allowed for hardening, then the pots are placed
mouth downwards on the ground, and a bonfire of
brushwood made all around them; when this has
burned out, and the pots are cool, they are ready
for use. The only tool used, beside the hand,
is a piece of gourd shell.
Kg. 25 shows how Neolithic woman went to
58
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
work, and Fig. 26 a pottery spoon she made, which
can be seen at the British Museum.
WOMAN AS AN INVENTOR
The Akiktiyu pottery is made by women, and
the probability is that Neolithic woman did this
work, and looked after the home, while her hus-
band was hunter and herdsman. She probably did
far more than just cook and mend; we must think
of her as an inventor. With pottery the long train
was started which has led up to the modern sauce-
pan; before then, meat could only be roasted over a
fire, or baked in a cooking-pit, but with a stout
earthen pot that could be placed in the ashes the
Neolithic equivalent of Irish stew was possible.
Water could be heated, and milk and grain
stored.
It will be noticed that the pot shown in Fig. 24
has a rounded bottom, which suggests that it might
have been blocked up on two or three stones, and
a fire made under it.
Perhaps it was the woman who noticed that
cattle ate the seeds of grasses, and experimented
by grinding some between stones; she may have
tasted the flour and found it sweet, and then have
54
FIG. 22. Grinding Corn.
FIG. 20. Strike-a-light,
FIG. 25. Making Pbttery.
The New Stone Age
brought home more seeds. A few seeds may have
blown away into the ground newly turned up at
the base of a hut, and the woman may have
watched these growing and have watered and
tended them. In this way it may have occurred
to her to make a garden, and she would have
discovered that cultivation improved the crop;
once this fact was appreciated there were endless
opportunities; the crab apple, wild plum, and
other fruits could be experimented with, and most
probably woman was a gardener before man
became a farmer; of one thing we may be quite
sure, Neolithic man did not rise up one day and
plant an acre lynchet, without endless experiments
and questionings going before.
If Neolithic woman made pottery, then it is to
her we must give the credit for a renaissance of the
Arts. There had been a great slump in the art
world since the Magdalenian times of the Old
Stone Age, but with the coming of pottery, pattern
began. At first it did not amount to much more
than cutting lines in the damp clay, or denting it
with the finger nail; still it was a start, and before
this book ends we shall see how in late Celtic times
patterns became very beautiful.
57
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
NEOLITHIC EAETHWORKS
Having seen something of men's houses in Neo-
lithic times, and the more domestic details of their
lives, we can turn to their larger works. The
trackways, or road system shown on Fig. 3, link up
a series of splendid earthworks, and many of these
are of Neolithic construction. Starting perhaps
as simple cattle enclosures, surrounded by a ditch
and bank, with some additional precautions taken
at the entrances, these camps were gradually
improved, until we arrive at such a masterpiece
as Maiden Castle near Dorchester. More banks
were added, the entrances made into mazes of in-
genuity; the camps divided into two parts, one for
cattle and the other for people; developed just in
the same way as the Tower of London, where we
find the Norman keep surrounded by much later
works.
It is very difficult to estimate the age of earth-
works; especially the very simple ones. Neo-
lithic flint implements and pottery have dated
some; in others Roman coins have been found, but
this would not justify us in saying that an earth-
work was Roman. The Romans fortified their
58
The New Stone Age
camps when on the march, but did not of course
ever live in hill forts. Roman coins in these may
point to the times of the Saxon terror, when the
Britons fled to these forts as places of refuge and
took their money with them.
Earthworks are classified by archaeologists as A,
Promontory Fortresses, where a piece of high
ground inaccessible by reason of precipices or
water on one side, has been defended by artificial
works on the other. B 1 are Hilltop Forts with
artificial defences following the natural lines of the
hill, and are sometimes called Contour forts. B 2
are Forts on high ground, less dependent on
natural slopes for protection, and there are later
types which do not concern us now.
To illustrate the general principles of this method
of fortification by earthwork we have chosen Bad-
bury Rings, near Wimborne, Dorset, which is
classified under B 1, and the plan of this is shown
on Fig. 27. It may be as well to give first a brief
description of the terms used in describing an earth-
work. Vallum, Rampart, and Agger, all mean
earthen walls, see 1 on Section on Fig. 28* Fosse
or Ditch at 2, Escarpment is the slope at 8.
Counterscarp at 4; if the counterscarp is brought
59
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
up above the level line as a smaller rampart, this is
a revetment. The flat piece of undisturbed ground
at 5 is a Berm. The plans of earthworks, which
generally look like hairy caterpillars biting their
tails, show the top of a slope as a thick line tapering
off down the slope.
Now as to the way the old builders went to
work. To start with, they had as good an eye for
the possibilities of a piece of country as a Royal
Engineer officer, or a fox-hunting squire. They
always chose pleasant sunny situations where the
thyme-scented grass gave good feeding for their
cattle, and the scabious flowers nodded in the
breeze to the song of the skylark. There is no
more pleasant place in which to loaf than an old
earthwork; you can always get into the sun and out
of the wind, and the slope of the banks is exactly
right for an easy position from which to gaze over
the countryside, and that is just what the old men
wanted to do. Their cattle would have grazed on
the hillside, meanwhile the watchman kept a look
out for wolves and wild boar, or wandering cattle-
lifters. Cattle was wealth in these days.
The builders then chose the rounded hump of a
chalk down, which was not controlled by any
60
The New Stone Age
higher ground, and it is probable that the first thing
they did was to dig one simple ditch and bank, or
fosse and vallum. In doing this they had to use
antler picks, and shoulder-blade shovels, as Pig. 10;
remember they had no metal as yet. They doubt-
less carried up the chalk in rough baskets, and so
raised the bank above them. On examining an
old earthwork, the first thing to do is to discover the
natural level, as dotted line on section on Fig. 28,
and then see how they went to work, because at
first sight, the fosses are so deep, and the banks so
high, that it seems impossible such work could
have been done without steam navvies. When we
have found the natural level, we discover that the
art of the job was, that by the basket of earth dug
out, not only was the ditch lowered, but the bank
raised; see A, Fig. 29, and that a higher bank was
made more speedily on a slope as at B, than on the
level. Again, on a very steep slope at C, the soil
dug out could be thrown downhill.
Still, notwithstanding all this, these earthworks
must have been tremendous undertakings. The
outermost of the three banks at Badbuiy, which we
illustrate, is 1 mile in circuit; at Maiden Castle
near Dorchester, nearly lj^. Particular care was
63
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
given to the design of the entrances. At Badbuiy
there are two, one on the E. and the other the
W.; the dotted line shows the way in. On the W.
side the banks have been cut through in other
places in recent times, but in old days any invad-
ing force had to come as the dotted line which left
them very much at the mercy of the bowmen on
the banks above them. Our drawings (Figs. 28
and 29) show the eastern entrance, and how
this was controlled. A "flanking" entrance was
so arranged that the right side (unprotected by
shield) was exposed to the defenders' arrows.
The tops of the banks were palisaded, and the
bottoms of the ditches filled with sharpened stakes.
These palisades led the way to the hedges of Saxon
times, because the wood of which they were made
being green, must have sprouted, and given men
the idea of a hedge. The wide areas between the
banks, called "bermes," may have been used as
cattle pens, because a stampede of half-wild cattle
at night would not have been pleasant, or, as at
Maiden Castle, the camp may have been divided
into two parts for the same purpose.
Hut circles are found in the earthworks, which
suggest huts as shown in our drawings. Heaps of
64
The New Stone Age
sling stones have been found, and bracers, or wrist-
guards, which show that bows were used.
WATER SUPPLY
There has been considerable discussion as to how
the Hill Fort men provided themselves with water,
and there are various theories. First, it must be
remembered that the fort formed the citadel, and
place of refuge for the district, and the people
grouped themselves around it. Their little huts
were not difficult to make, and their simple hus-
bandry meant only the cultivation of the terraces,
or lynchets, on the hillside where they grew their
corn; they did not need or use so much water as we
do to-day, and in the usual way were free to go
downhill to the nearest stream. The country was
not drained in those days, which meant water lay
on a higher level than now, but leaving springs
on one side, there is the dew pond which is still
used to water cattle on the Wiltshire Downs. This
is made as Fig. 30. A shallow saucer-like de-
pression is cut in the chalk, and lined with straw.
On this comes a layer of puddled clay, with rims of
chalk to protect the clay from the feet of cattle.
Loose flints are put on the bottom, and the pond is
5 65
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
started with a little water in it. The straw and clay
cut off the heat of the earth, and when the moist
mists drive over the Downs at night and come to
the cooler pond, they condense on its surface.
Ordinary ponds are formed in this way, where a
pocket of clay comes in a warmer soil. Water drains
into it, and the cattle puddle up the clay till it is free
from cracks and watertight, and so the pond extends.
In the hot summer of 1921 we were going through
Dorset looking at earthworks and found the pond
on the top of Holt Heath, near Bull Barrow, full of
water, while the Tarrant River in the valley close by
was absolutely dry. The Wycombe chairmakers,
who go into the woods to turn chair legs, obtain
water in an ingenious way. If you examine the
bole of a beech tree, you will find well-marked
channels, where the rain and condensed dew runs
down the tree-trunk. The chairmaker makes a
cross cut in such a channel, and drives a chip of
wood in, which diverts the water into a pail; so
turning on a tap is not the only way to get water.
LIFE IN THE WILD
We think other questions may have occurred to
boys and girls who have visited a hill fort; they
66
The New Stone Age
may have asked themselves how early man could
have withstood the cold and rain in such an exposed
position, with only very scanty clothing. The
Great War was a revelation as to the amount of
hardship modern man could withstand, and yet
remain healthy, but a happier example was given
by a Mr. Knowles in 1913. Mr. Knowles is an
American; born in the backwoods, he ran away to
sea as a boy; later he was a trapper and guide, and
now is an artist. Without knowing anything about
primitive man, Mr. Knowles wondered whether
it would be possible for a modern man to go into
the wilds and support life without any outside aid;
to depend entirely on one's own effort. He deter-
mined to try, and on 4th August, 1913, walked out
alone into the woods of Northern Maine, naked,
without any weapons, tools, knives, or matches.
His book Alone in the Wilderness tells us how he
fared. Fire was made with a fire-drill, as Fig. 47,
Part L; and the inner bark of cedar braided into
thin rope used for the bowstring, until later, when
game had been killed, sinews were available. A
log too heavy to move, was cut into short lengths
by lighting fires at the places where it was to be
divided; sticks were pointed by burning the ends
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
and then scraping away the char. A maple had
fallen on to a hornbeam and smashed it up, and this
provided the slivers of wood which could be scraped
down with a "sharp rock 55 into the bow and arrows.
Food was toasted over a fire, or on rocks heated by
fire, and the fire banked down lasted for days. Mr.
Knowles found it quite possible to walk about
naked by day, but needed leg coverings as a pro-
tection against briars, and a rug for the night; in
this he was like the Australians and Tasmanians
(p. 68, Part L). The rug was obtained by trapping
a bear in a combined pit and deadfall trap.
Pointed stones and digging-sticks, as Fig. 62, Part
L, were used to dig the pit, and the bear when
caught, killed by a blow on the nose from a horn-
beam club. We may be quite sure that prehistoric
man used all sorts of traps and snares in this way.
Mr. Knowles used sharp stones for the skinning,
and "quantities of meat came off with the skin";
this gives us a clue as to why prehistoric man used
so many scrapers. Some of the bears' meat was
smoked for keeping, and all the sinews kept for ties.
There were blueberries and raspberries for the
picking; various buds and barks were chewed, and
frogs eaten, but not liked. Trout were caught by
70
The New Stone Age
breaking down a beaver dam, which lowered the
stream above, and left the fish stranded in pools.
Animals were surprised in the act of killing, and
driven off their prey; an otter who had killed
a trout; a bear, a deer. Mr. Enowles did not suffer
from the lack of salt, except that his food was not
so palatable. For huts rough shelters were made,
like Fig. 37, Part L, and moccasins were made of
the inner lining of cedar bark, until skins could be
obtained. Bowls, in which water could be heated,
were made of birch bark skewered into shape, and
these do not burn below the water-line. Mr.
Knowles* book is illustrated by drawings made
with charcoal from his fires on birch bark; he
actually contemplated painting, and started mak-
ing paper and brushes.
He passed his forty-fourth birthday in the woods,
and was examined by Dr. Dudley A. Sargent, the
physical director of Harvard University, both
before and after his experiment. According to the
system employed at Harvard, his physical condi-
tion equalled 876 points before, and 954 after. If a
twentieth-century man could do all this, we do not
think there is any need to be sorry for prehistoric
man in his hilltop fort; the sun and rain would not
71
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
have worried him, and he probably thought of
himself as being tremendously up to date. Mr.
Knowles feared the cold, but found that the real
trial was the isolation from his fellow-men. This
seems to us a very just conclusion, and has been
proved over and over again. Where an individual,
or race, is cut off, then development is arrested;
however, in this book we are concerned with
communities which are continually increasing in
size.
SOCIAL LIFE
The concentration of a number of people either
making or living in a hill fort was to have great
results. In the old days, the hunting tribe was like
a large family, who very speedily knew all one
another's good points, and were so apt to emphasize
the bad ones; life was not at all exciting. The
keeping of cattle brought more people together, and
the simple enclosures developed into places like
Maiden Castle. Here there must have been a
bustling life, with all sorts of men coming and
?oing, and new things to be discovered. Think of
the excitement caused by a trader from overseas,
uriving at Weymouth, and trudging over the hills
73
(5
The New Stone Age
to Maiden Castle, and bringing the first bronze
celt; the hubbub that would have arisen among a
people who had never seen metal before. Customs
would arise, and Law solidify out of these. Lan-
guage would develop around the hut fires, and
traditional tales form the beginnings of literature.
These hill forts are evidences of a more ordered
system of life than anything which had gone
before; even to-day with all our transport system,
and organized labour, the construction of either
Badbury or Maiden Castle would call for con-
centrated effort. To make a flint implement, which
you do yourself, is one thing; to construct a camp
which needs the labour of many men is quite an-
other. It had to be planned; there must have been
some few men who were skilled in the design of
camps, and could say to the tribesmen, "To-day we
will cut this ditch, and dump the stuff here to form
a bank. You are going wrong there; and you have
not allowed sufficient room for that escarpment,
because the angle of repose at which chalk will
come to rest is flatter than that," and so on.
Whether they were made by slave, or free,
cannot now be ascertained, but probably by free-
men. The beginnings of slavery are to be found
75
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
in war, and it is doubtful if the tribesmen were
sufficiently organized as yet to combine for war-
fare; the forts would have had to withstand raids,
not endure sieges. Combination for the arts of
peace would have led in the end to the application
of the same principles to war; then, again, prehis-
toric man would at first have massacred his
captives, until it occurred to him as being wasteful,
when they would have been enslaved instead.
If our readers will read Mr. Hippisley Cox's
book, The Green Roads of England, they will find
how these hill forts are all linked up on a trackway
system, as well adapted to the needs of the time
as the Roman roads and stations later on. This
road question brings up fortification, and what it
means. Let us imagine Badbury, not grass grown
as it is to-day where with a tea-tray we can to-
boggan, but all shining white where the chalk banks
had been thrown up; or Maiden Castle, !*/ miles
round its outer circuit. It would have been
startlingly formidable in appearance. As the
later tribes came in as immigrants, and found their
way along the trackways, these hill forts were there
to bar their way. Of course, there were not any
invading armies in those days, who needed to main-
76
The New Stone Age
tain lines of communication with the coast; it was a
case of invading tribes who wished to settle down.
In the case of hostile tribes, they certainly could
not afford to cross a trackway and leave a hill fort
on their flank or rear, unless they came to terms
with its inhabitants. In this way these hill forts
played exactly the same part as the Norman
Castles and walled towns of the Middle Ages.
LONG BABBOWS
We can now pass on to the Neolithic Long
Barrow, or Burial mound, because, apart from its
spiritual significance which we will discuss later, it
has great interest in its structure. The Long
Barrow derives its name from the fact that it is
egg-shaped on plan, and there are two types; those
having chambers inside for the interment, and
others where the bodies were covered directly by the
earth; these latter have a ditch at the sides leaving
a wide path at the original level at each end.
Generally placed E. and W., the burial is usually in
the E. end, which is higher and broader than the
W. It is a curious fact that the Neolithic long-head
built a long barrow, while that of the later round-
headed Bronze man was round.
77
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
Fig. 32 shows the West Kennet long barrow.
Originally it was about 336 feet long by 75 feet
wide at the E. end, where it was some 8 feet high.
The small figures at each end are in scale with the
length, and serve to give an indication of its size.
The sepulchral chamber, as the plan at A, was
about 60 feet from the E. end, with an entrance
corridor from the outside. It is the construction of
this chamber and corridor, with large stones, which
makes it a megalithic structure, and so links it up
with Stonehenge. The building principle is the
same, large stones are placed on edge, and the
covering formed by others laid flat as lintels. In
other structures of this sort, where the span was too
great for one stone, courses of masonry were pro-
jected from either side as corbels, until the central
space was narrow enough to be bridged. See Picts
Houses, Figs. 33 and 34. Around the outside of
the W. Kennet barrow came a dry stone wall with
upright sarsen stones at intervals. This dry stone
walling was a great accomplishment on the part of
the builders, and marked an advance. Long-
headed skeletons were found in the chamber, and
no evidence of cremation. The plan at B is of the
Corridor Tomb at New Grange, in Drogheda,
78
FIG. 33. Earth House. Usinish,
South Uist, Hebrides.
PIG. 34. Hcts House, Sutherland.
FIG. 37. Kcte Tower.
The New Stone Age
Ireland. Externally it consists of a huge heap of
stones, 800 feet in diameter and 70 feet high.
Internally the corridor is some 60 feet long, and
leads to the central chamber, which is roughly
domed over at a height of 20 feet. Off this central
chamber are recesses, used for sepulchral purposes.
These chambered barrows are planned much on the
same lines as the Stone Age Temples of Malta.
The bones found in the Long Barrows are dis-
jointed, as if they had been placed there some while
after death; and it may well be that only the heroes
were thought worthy of such burial. Because the
barrows were used for more than one burial, it has
been suggested that slaves may have been sacrificed
to accompany their tribal chiefs to the spirit world,
in the same way that implements and pottery
were broken, and animals slaughtered, but it is
doubtful if slavery was yet possible. We shall
probably be quite safe if we regard these barrows
as tribal mausoleums, where the people could as-
semble and hold services. They are a visible sign
to us that Neolithic man believed in a life here-
after, and built them as an emphatic assertion that
death is not final. It must have needed some great
impulse to bring the tribe together, and make them
81
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
willing to undertake such a vast work as the con-
struction of a barrow.
This provision of houses for the dead throws an
interesting sidelight on the belief of those days; it
suggests that in Neolithic times the spirit was tied
to the earth for some little while, whereas in the
later Bronze Age burials, when the body was
burned, it seems as if the spirit was freed at once to
go to the spirit-world. The homes for the dead
may have been modelled on those of living men;
there is a range of habitations which would appear
to have been developments of this idea. Figs. 33
and 34 show what are known as Picts Houses in
Scotland, and this form of stone construction
covered with earth is clearly derived from the
chambered barrows. Again the Eskimo houses
(Figs. 35 and 36) seem to be survivals carried to
the N. In Fig. 35 there is a long tunnel entrance
leading to the hut, with the beds at A, and the
cooking-places at B. The roof of the hut is formed
of skins, with a layer of moss between, carried on
the poles shown in the sketch. The window is of
membrane stretched between whales' jaw bones.
The snow house (Fig. 36) is of the same form.
There are Picts houses in Scotland which consist of
82
The New Stone Age
a paved trench lined with masonry, and covered with
stone slabs which terminate in a round chamber.
Fig. 37 is of a Picts Tower, Doon, or Broch, found
in Sutherland, Caithness, Orkneys, Shetlands, and
the Hebrides. The little door shown is only 3
feet 8 inches high, by 3 feet broad, and leads
through the wall, which is 10 feet 6 inches thick, with
a guard cell off the passage 4 feet high and 9 feet
long, with a doorway 2 feet square. There is a
circular court inside, open to the sky, and in the
wall of this, opposite the entrance, another door
leads to a passage winding up in the thickness of
the wall to upper galleries, all of which are very low,
and lighted by windows into the inner court. It
is very difficult to date such buildings, but these
Picts towers are Megalithic in character, and built
of dry stone; in design they are first cousins to the
Nuraghi of Sardinia, which are fortified dwellings.
The Picts are supposed to have descended from
the Iberian stock, and, it may well be, built these
towers, perhaps as late as Roman times, in this
distant part of the country.
Fig. 38 shows a Dolmen, or Table Stone; this
may have been part of the chamber of a barrow,
from which the encircling earth has been removed,
83
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
and ploughed away. Its construction is as de-
scribed on page 78.
Fig. 39 is of a Menhir, or Standing Stone; these
may have been connected with worship, or be the
memorials to brave men, or great events. In
Genesis xxxi., we read that Jacob and Laban
made a covenant, and so "Jacob took a stone, and
set it up for a pillar," and in Genesis xxxv. that
"Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave: that is the
pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day." A Crom-
lech is a circle of menhirs; an alignment where
they are arranged in open lines. A Trilithon, two
menhirs with a lintel across the top.
We have said that megalithic means building
with large stones, and it is well to realize how large
some of these were. Mr. Peet, in Rough Stone
Monuments, writes of a block weighing nearly 40
tons, which must have been brought 18 miles, at
La Perotte, Charente, France.
It may be as well before we pass on to Stone-
henge, the greatest of our megalithic monuments,
to get some idea of how the builders went to work.
It is probable that the only mechanical aid they
had was the lever. Boys and girls, who learn
mechanics, will not need to be reminded of what
84
PlG. 35. Eskimo Rock Hut.
FIG. 39. A Menhir.
The New Stone Age
the lever means, so they must excuse this digression
for some others who may not know.
Fig. 40 shows a see-saw, and the principles of
leverage may have been discovered by Neolithic, or
perhaps Palaeolithic, boys and girls amusing them-
selves in this way. A see-saw is like a pair of
scales; it does not make any difference if you sit on
the beam, or are suspended below it. If the two
boys sit at an equal distance from the centre, and
are of the same weight, they will balance one
another, but if one is heavier, he will have to come
nearer the centre, if equilibrium is to be main-
tained. So much is this the case, that if he is very
much heavier, say, six stone, to his small brother, 1
stone, then the heavy boy need only be 1 foot from
the centre, to balance the light boy at 6 feet, as
A, Fig. 40. Imagine the beam at A as a lever;
1 cwt. applied in a downward direction at one end,
6 feet away from the centre, will exert an upward
pressure of 6 cwt. at the other end, 1 foot away
from the centre.
If the boys sit, both on one side, as at B, they
win be balanced by a 2-stone boy 6 feet away on
the other side. If we take the left-hand side of B,
and find that 6 stone at 1 foot = 1 stone at 6 feet,
87
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
and apply it as at C, and imagine the 6 stone at 1
foot as a log or stone which has to be lifted, then 1
stone lift 6 feet away will do it. We can apply our
lever in a different way as at D. The beam is bent
at right angles; one arm is 6 feet long, and the short
one 1 foot. A 1 stone push at the top of the 6 feet
long arm will produce a 6 stone pull up at the end
of the horizontal arm, 1 foot long. This brings us
to the erection of church steeples, chimney shafts,
and towers. Take E, 6 units high, by 2 broad in its
base, as a tower which has to resist the pressure of
wind by its weight. Wind pressures are known,
and their force on the whole area is applied to a
lever arm of half the height of the tower as at E
To oppose this there is weight, acting through its
centre of gravity, on a lever arm of half the width
of the base. If the wind pressure is greater than
the weight, over goes the tower. We do not say
that Neolithic man looked at problems in this way,
but we do, because of the mechanical laws these
early builders discovered.
BUILDING STONEHENGE
Bearing these laws in mind, we can pass on to a
consideration of how the Neolithic builders went to
88
The New Stone Age
work in building Stonehenge. Their first require-
ment was stone, and this Nature provided in the
local sandstone, or sarsens, which are found on the
Berkshire and Wiltshire Downs; the country
people call these grey wethers, because they look
rather like sheep. No. 1, Fig. 41, shows the
masons dressing the "grey wether" into shape in its
original position to save weight in transport. It
is thought that the masons may have used fire first
to heat the stone, and then water to make frag-
ments split off, but it would be a dangerous method,
and they may have used wooden wedges instead.
We have seen a good mason in Inverness-shire
working on a large granite boulder on the hillside
where it was dropped out of the bottom of a glacier
ages ago. The mason wanted to make a 6-inch
landing, and he obtained this by drilling a series
of holes, into which he inserted wedges, and so split
the landing out of the heart of the boulder. Neo-
lithic man may have used the same methods, but of
this we cannot be sure; we do know that he had
flint and stone tools, because these have been found
when excavating to raise the fallen stones at Stone-
henge. The flint axes were roughly sharpened,
and held in the hand, and appear to have been used
89
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
to clean the surface of the stone, after it had been
bruised by larger stone boulders, or mauls, which
smashed off the bumps.
No. 2, Fig. 41, shows men lifting one end of the
block to place rollers under it. No. 3 shows the
rollers in position, and men pulling rough hide
ropes, with others behind assisting with levers.
At 4 we arrive at the building place, where a hole
was dug, having one sloping side, and the upright
stone being set in the hole, it was fixed by ramming
small stones into the triangular space at A 5, but it
seems obvious that a sloping embankment as at 4
must have been built up before the stone could
be tipped into the hole. Without the embankment
it would have been nearly impossible to raise the
stone, and a very dangerous job. With the
embankment even if the stone slipped forward a
little in the tipping over it could easily have been
levered back into the hole, and then when resting
against the embankment as at 5, pulling and
levering would have raised it; meanwhile earth
shovelled down into the triangular space at A
would have fixed the stone in the desired position.
As to the top lintel stones, these may have been
placed in position by making a bigger embankment,
90
The New Stone Age
or by levers as 6 and 7. The stone raised once
could be blocked up, and the operation repeated.
The stone shown in Fig. 41 is about the size of one
of the uprights in the outer circle of Stonehenge.
Pig. 42 is a sketch plan showing the original form of
Stonehenge. First there is an outer rampart, not
shown on the plan, consisting of a circular ditch
and bank, about 300 feet in diameter. There is
an opening on the N.E. in the circle, where it is
joined by an avenue. Within this rampart comes
the actual temple as shown on plan. First there is
the outer circle, at A, which originally consisted of
30 stones, standing about 14 feet high by 7 feet
wide by 3J^ feet thick. Around on top of these
stones comes the circle of crowning lintels, mor-
tised or hollowed out on their undersides on to
tenons or stubs worked on the tops of the vertical
stones under. Fig. 43 gives some idea of what
this outer circle must have looked like when
complete. Within this circle is another, at B, of
smaller stones, and then at C came 5 magnificent
trilithons arranged in horseshoe form on plan.
Each trilithon consisted of two upright stones, and
one lintel and starting from the N.E., or entrance
side, the height of the trilithons is increased.
93
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
Inside the trilithons is another horseshoe of smaller
obelisks at D, around the flat Altar stone at E.
Just inside the entrance from the avenue is a
large flat stone, which has the sombre name of the
"slaughtering" stone, and a little way down the
avenue another upright one called the Hele
Stone.
There have been many interesting speculations
as to the purpose, and age of Stonehenge. It will
be noticed that it is set out on an axial line which
points to the N.E. or where the sun comes up over
the horizon on the longest day, or summer solstice
of 21st June, but it does not appear to do so now
on the exact centre line of the entrance avenue, so
far as it is possible to determine this. Taking this
difference into account, and the astronomical fact
that the sun rises each year a little more to the
East, Sir Norman Lockyer and Prof. Penrose
formed the idea that about four thousand years
ago the sun did rise on the actual axial line of the
avenue. We have tried to show this in Fig. 44,
and have shown the Hele Stone as part of a trili-
thon. This estimate of age agrees with the
archaeological evidence, because in the excavations
carried out for raising the fallen stones, only flint
94
The New Stone Age
implements were found, and not any bronze tools
which would point to a later date. There is a
model in the Prehistoric Room at the British
Museum of Sir Norman Lockyer's theory.
As to its uses, it may well be that Stonehenge was
a Temple of the Sun, from which the priests or
medicine men could take their observation. We
accept the longest and shortest days as a matter of
course, if we give the matter any thought at all, but
not so the Neolithic man. It must have been a
mystery to him, that the sun should appear in a
shallow arc across the horizon in the winter, but
climbs into the sky in summer-time. It annoys us
on dull days to know that the sun shines behind
the clouds and we cannot see it, and Stonehenge
may have been a magic observatory, where the
priests could determine the position of the sunrise
when it could not be seen. The priests may have
settled the seasons; have said now is the time to
plant; now we will sacrifice to the Sun-god that he
may make our crops grow. Again, we accept the
miracle of growth and increase as a commonplace,
but the Neolithic man, who, in one of his rough
hand-made pots, had safeguarded his hardly won
seed, did not commit it to mother earth without
* 95
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
some offering, or propitiation, or sacrifice. The
sacrifice was not necessarily just so much sheer
cruelty as an offering to the gods of some person
who was loved, or a pot or implement which was
valuable, so that the person or family making the
sacrifice might be blessed. The individual did not
count for very much in those early days; the tribe
came first, and if one must die to save the others it
had to be. In some such way the sacrifice became
a part of the ritual of early religions. We know
how in Genesis xxii. 2, God said to Abraham,
"Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom
thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah;
and offer him there for a burnt-offering.'*
In the twenty-first book of the Iliad, Achilles,
after he has killed the son of Priam, throws him
into the river, and speaking over him "exalting
winged words," says, "Nor even the River, fair-
flowing, silver-eddied, shall avail you, to whom
long time forsooth ye sacrifice many bulls, and
among his eddies throw whole-hooved horses down
alive."
In Mr. and Mrs. Routledge's book, on the
Akikuyu of British East Africa, there is an account
of the people who dig for sand for use in making
96
The New Stone Age
pottery. It is interesting, because it gives us an
idea of the spiritual outlook of these people. The
natives tunnel into the hillside for sand like so
many rabbits, and as they do not take any pre-
cautions, the burrow sooner or later falls in, and
smothers the excavator. The Akikdyu do not
take any steps to dig the poor fellow out, because
this would offend the Spirit of the Sand Pit, but
sacrifice a goat instead to propitiate the spirit, then
start another burrow which, in its turn, necessitates
another goat being sacrificed. This, we think,
would have been the case with the Neolithic men:
they would have worshipped the Sun, Moon, and
Stars, the Rivers and Waters, the Mountains and
Valleys, and a great Mother God over all. If by
any chance the spirits were offended; if certain
things were done which were taboo, or forbidden,
sacrifice had to be made. Just as the Akikftyu
appear to be a very kindly pleasant people, who do
not enslave one another, or go to war, so we can
free the Neolithic men from the charge of cruelty.
Stonehenge does not appear to have had any
connection with Druidism, which followed many
centuries after. The Druids worshipped the Moon
and Stars, and Stonehenge was a Sun Temple, built
09
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
by an agricultural people, to whom the Sun was
all-important.
So far as Neolithic man is concerned, his religion
must have been a very real one to him, or he would
not have taken so much trouble with the Mega-
lithic monuments we have been describing. These
were very widespread, and can be traced along the
shores of the Mediterranean, through France, to
this country; we have seen how the Picts towers
resemble the Nuraghi of Sardinia (p. 83) and the
chambered barrows the Stone Age temples of
Malta.
This art of building was in its way as wonderful
as the Magdalenian paintings we wrote of on page
173 of Part I. and we must try and imagine the
builders. There is a danger in archaeology of
thinking more of the things than of the people who
made them; we talk of flint implements, as if the
New Stone Age could be collected in a bushel basket
and shown in the glass cases of a museum, and
especially is this the case in the prehistoric period
before there was any written history. The interest
of things is that they were made by people, and
when the things are temples and tombs they
become extraordinarily indicative of the spirit of
100
The New Stone Age
man; of that essence, or aura, which gives him and
his work individuality, and has made possible the
great works of architecture, painting, poetry, and
sculpture, and which makes it possible for a man to
lay down his life for an idea. Any great move-
ment which appeals to the mind of men has always
been compounded of the spirit.
101
CHAPTER H
THE BRONZE AGE
WE saw, in Part L, how the men of the Old
Stone Age found a new material in bone and ivory,
and the effect of this was to open up a whole range
of new activities. They could make harpoons
with barbs in bone, which were not possible in the
intractable flint. The fishermen should place in
their calendar of benefactors the Palaeolithic worker
in bone who invented the barb.
Even more so the introduction of metal wrought
an enormous difference in the lives of men. The
Neolithic herdsman, who splintered his stone axe on
the skull of a springing wolf, saw the work of
months vanish, and was in great danger himself,
but when he was the owner of the first of the bronze
celts, he walked abroad proudly. The edge of the
celt might dull with use, but then it could be
hammered up again; it did not fly into fragments,
and it could be hammered cold, which is an import -
102
The Bronze Age
ant detail to remember. Trees could be cut down;
houses would have been built more quickly than
was possible before, and in a hundred different
ways man was given a new confidence in his
powers, and so was able to make progress.
We must not think of a Bronze Age which started
full blown at a particular date, or of a people who
threw away their flint implements one day, to arm
themselves with metal on the next. It was a very
slow and gradual change over. It is probable that
the first flat celts were brought here by traders
from the Continent, and many years may have
elapsed before they were followed by the round-
headed men we now associate with Bronze, and
centuries before the Goidels, or first of the Keltic-
speaking peoples who reached this country (see
p. 28).
The art of Bronze working came from the East,
by way of Italy and Gaul, and was widely spread,
except in Africa, which never had a Bronze Age.
We have seen, on page 27, that the Bronze men
were more powerful physically than the Medi-
terranean race. Probably they were not all armed
with bronze, but in any case in the end they con-
quered the Iberians. It was not a conquest of
105
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
extermination, because we find in the round
barrows, which are typical of the Bronze Age,
round-headed men side by side with long-headed
Iberians.
A parallel can be found in Greece, where the
round-headed Achseans of the Heroic Age dis-
possessed the long-headed Minoans of Mediterra-
nean stock.
As the art of metal working is the great central
fact which has given the name of the Bronze Age to
this period, it may be as well to start by a
description of the methods followed by prehistoric
man in his craft; in doing so we must try and place
ourselves in his position, and imagine that we have
never seen metal before. Bronze, as you know, is
an alloy of copper and tin, and we shall find that
copper, like gold, is sometimes found almost pure,
and is capable of being hammered up cold, without
any preliminary smelting to reduce the ores. Iron
ore is found in the form of red earth, or stone, and is
not so obviously metallic and would more easily
have escaped attention than copper. The North
American Indians hammered up pure copper, and
made knives in this way before the coming of the
European invaders. So the age of bronze may
106
The Bronze Age
have been preceded by one of copper. Even when
smelting and casting bronze had been discovered,
it was found that it could be forged cold, and that
when it was heated, it tended to become short and
fly to pieces when being hammered. It is hardened
by hammering, and softened by heating and
quenching, whereas iron hardens by heating and
quenching. Bronze was an ideal metal for pre-
historic man, because dulled edges could be
hammered up again anywhere without very much
trouble. It can be made extremely hard. The
head of an engineering firm in Leeds writes us as
follows: "I have just had in the shop, for making
into a special spur wheel, a phosphor-bronze cast-
ing so hard that we could only just cut it, and
tougher by far than any cast iron and most steels."
He adds : " If copper and tin were to-day as plenti-
ful as iron, I believe that the latter would only be
used for special tool steels." We gladly publish
this statement of a twentieth-century engineer to
cheer the shades of the old bronze metal workers.
We can now pass to smelting. Pottery had
given man the idea of taking a plastic material and
shaping it; he may have used clay to line a cooking-
pit, and found that baking hardened it. In the
107
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
same way the accidental introduction of copper ore
into a cooking-pit, or a charcoal fire exposed to the
wind, would have melted the ore and this would
have been found as metal when the ashes were
raked aside. The metal may have cast itself into a
shape which suggested a tool or weapon, and it
would have prompted the ingenious man to experi-
ment. In some such way it must have come about.
The first moulds were simple flat open moulds, into
which the molten metal could be poured, then pro-
gression was made to hollow casting with clay
cores which could afterwards be scraped out.
Stone, bronze, and probably fine sand were used
and actual moulds can be seen at the British
Museum.
We get an inkling of how the bronze men went to
work from the Iliad xviii. Hephaistos, the famed
artificer, who "wrought much cunning work of
bronze, brooches and spiral arm-bands, and cups
and necklaces," when he starts work on the
wonderful shield for Achilles "went unto his
bellows and turned them upon the fire and bade
them work. And the bellows, twenty in all, blew
on the crucibles, sending deft blasts on every
side. . . . And he threw bronze that weareth not
108
PIG. 45. Hafting of Palstave and Socketed Celt.
The Bronze Age
into the fire, and tin and precious gold and silver/ 5
This would have been an apparatus very similar
to that used for iron at the Glastonbury lake
village, as shown in Fig. 72. Copper melts at
1083 centigrade, and tin at only 232, so that the
Bronze Age founder melted the copper first, then
threw charcoal on to the melted mass to retain the
heat, and added the tin. The ideal aimed at seems
to have been 10 per cent, tin to 90 per cent, copper,
but endless experiments went to the discovery that
this made a good bronze. Prehistoric man did not
know anything about analytical metallurgy. Sur-
face copper ores sometimes contain tin-oxide, and
the intelligent man would soon have been moved
to find out why a celt made from this ore was
tougher than one of pure copper.
We can now pass on to the actual implements
made, and Fig. 46 shows the development of the
Bronze Celt. No. 1 is called the Flat Celt, and is
obviously fashioned on the lines of the stone celt
which preceded it, and was haf ted in the same way
as Fig. 45. The makers soon discovered that by
hammering the edge it became thinner, keener, and
wider; so the upper part of the later celts is
narrower.
Ill
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
No. 2 shows the Flanged Celt, formed by
hammering over the sides. This was hafted as 1,
Fig. 45. A stick with a stout branch was selected,
and this being cut off, was forked to fit over the top
of the celt, and bound to it by raw hide. The
disadvantage was that the thin celt split the wood
head. A stop ridge was then developed between
the flanges, and this finally developed into 3,
Fig. 46, which is known as a palstave, from an
Icelandic word for a narrow spud. This stop ridge
took the force of the blow, and prevented the head
from splitting (see 1, Fig. 45). In this type, the
web between the flanges, above the stop ridge, was
thinner than the axe part under, and this feature
is more pronounced in 4, where the flanges are
hammered over into the form of what is known as
the Winged Celt. No. 5 shows the wings lapping,
and in 6 they have disappeared, and we arrive
at the final Socketed Celt, which was hafted as 2,
Fig. 45. There were endless intermediates, and
the celt is well worth studying, because it is the
ancestor of that friend of man, the axe.
The Bronze Spear is a weapon with an interesting
history. It started life as 1, Fig. 47, and in this
form was used either as a knife or a dagger. It was
na
The Bronze Age
cast solid, and provided with a tang which was
fitted into the end of the wooden shaft, and this
latter was prevented from splitting by a plain
bronze collar, through which a rivet passed and
secured the end of the tang. In 2 the collar has
become socket-shaped, and though not cast with
the spear-head, is attached to it by two rivets, and
the tang still remains. In 3 the tang has gone,
and the socket is part and parcel of the spear-head.
But an amusing fact should be noticed: that the
rivets which once fastened it to the head remain
as ornamental bumps. No. 3 has loops for thong
attachment to the shaft, or for tying on feathers or
streamers. In 4 and 5 the socket has further
developed, and the spear-head is formed of fins
cast on to the sides of the socket. In 5 these are
leaf-shaped, and the loops are decorative. In 6
the whole spear-head is a triumph of hollow casting.
The Sword developed out of the knife by way of
the dagger or rapier. It is easy to see that spear-
head No. 1, Fig. 47, if it had a short handle fitted
on to the tang instead of the shaft, would make a
useful knife. A rapier was an elongated dagger,
and the sword a later invention. Fig. 48 shows a
beautiful leaf -shaped sword. The tang for handle
* US
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
was cast on the blade, with the edges slightly
flanged up, and then in between these edges grips
of horn or wood were riveted on each side through
the tang, and a round pommel clipped on to the
end. Leather scabbards were used with bronze
tips called chapes. Bronze was not used for arrow-
heads, but flint, as in Neolithic times. The two
drawings, Fig. 46 of the celts, and Fig. 47 of the
spears, show the development over the whole of the
Bronze Age, and by reference to the chart (p. 25)
we shall find that this lasted not less than 1300
years. To realize how long a time this is, we must
remember that 1300 years ago in this country
would 1take us back nearly to the time of the death
of Ethelbert, king of the Kentish men, and the
first English king who received baptism.
In Fig. 56 the central man is shown holding a
circular Buckler or Shield made of a thin sheet of
bronze hammered up into concentric circles of lines
and dots. The buckler went with a leaf-shaped
spear, as 5, Fig. 47. A flanged celt with slight stop
ridge, a type midway between 2 and 3, Fig. 46, was
found with a spear-head slightly earlier in form
than 3, Fig. 47. The archaeologist in this way, by
associated finds, builds up a theory of the dates and
114
FIG. 49. A Bronze Age Smith.
The Bronze Age
developments of civilizations. Fig. 49, drawn from
the actual tools at the British Museum, shows the
equipment of a Bronze Age metal-worker. At 1 are
his hammers, halted like socketed celts. No. %
shows a tanged chisel, and 3 a socketed gouge. No.
4 is a sandstone rubber, and 5 a quite delightful
anvil.
One of the most interesting discoveries ever made
in England was what appears to be the complete
furnishing of a family at the end of the Bronze Age.
This was found in Heathery Burn Cave, County
Durham, which may have been used as a house, or
as a place of refuge. From remains of skulls which
were discovered, the inhabitants appear to have
been long-headed men of Iberian or Neolithic
stock, and it is possible that they removed to the
cave in face of the danger of invasion. We shall
see later how, at Glastonbury, a people of similar
extraction were put to the sword by invaders.
The Heathery Burn discovery included a sword
much the same as Fig. 48, but with slight shoulders
on the cutting edge of the blade near the handle.
A leaf-shaped spear-head, as 5, Fig. 47, but with-
out the loops. Bronze discs 5^ inches diameter,
which may have been used as dress ornaments or
117
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
horse trappings. Bronze collars which fitted on to
the nave or hub of chariot wheels, and which, in
conjunction with the bridle bit, show that the
horse was used. A basket was found, and tanged
and socketed knives; a razor, gouge, and a socketed
celt as 6, Fig. 46; chisels, awls, pins, rings, tongs,
and gold armlets. There were bone prickers,
spindle whorls, skewers, knives, the cheek-bars of
bridle-bits, and jet armlets; and all these things can
be seen at the British Museum. This splendid find
includes nearly all the known types of Bronze Age
implements, and we have founded our illustrations
on these Heathery Burn discoveries.
The spindle whorl shows that spinning was
practised in the Bronze Age in this country; both
spinning and weaving are supposed to have started
in the Swiss lake dwellings as early as the Neo-
lithic times. Various types of dress fastenings
began to come into use which were suitable for
light woven fabrics. Fig. 50 shows a bronze brooch
from Ireland, shaped rather like a large hollow
curtain-ring, and so arranged that a bronze pin
could be passed through it, and in this way fasten
a cloak drawn through the ring. This type may
have suggested the penannular brooch, as Fig. 76.
118
The Bronze Age
SPINNING
In a barrow in the East Riding, Yorks, of this
period, the remains of a linen winding-sheet were
found under a skeleton, and this could only have
been woven on a loom. We will consider, then,
the steps which a Bronze Age weaver had to take
if she wished to convert a fleece into a piece of stuff
for making clothes. It would need washing and
cleansing first, and then came dyeing. Crotal, a
lichen growing on trees, may have been used. If
this is put in a pot with the fleece and water and
boiled for one or two hours, it produces a rich red-
brown colour. Teasing consists of pulling the
fleece into fluff, and oiling explains itself. Carding
is an operation which consists of putting the wool
on an implement rather like a large butter-pat
with teeth, called the card, and then pulling the
other card across it, so as to arrange the wool for
spinning. This latter was the occupation of girls
for so many centuries, that we still talk of an
unmarried woman as a spinster.
The spindle which was used in the Bronze Age
consisted of a piece of wood, perhaps about 1 foot
long and 3^ inch diameter, and a few inches from
119
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
one end came the whorl, which acted as a miniature
fly-wheel and helped to twist the spindle. At the
other end was a little nick in which the yarn was
fastened. In spinning, a roll of carded wool was
held in the left hand, or bound on to a distaff; from
this roll a little wool was pulled out and twisted by
the fingers until a piece of yarn was made about 18
inches long, and this was tied to the spindle. The
wool was then paid out with the left hand, and the
spindle twisted with the right. When the spindle
stopped revolving it was held, when the twist ran
up the length of wool which had been paid out and
made this into yarn, which could then be wound on
to the spindle and the spinning resumed. We
have shown this in Fig. 51.
WEAVING
Weaving is, and has been since the Bronze Age,
one of the crafts which has had the greatest
influence on the progress of man. It is beautiful
work, done wherever man wants clothes, and
carried out in many different ways; but the main
principle of weaving is always the same. The long
threads running through the length of a piece of
doth are called the warp; the ones which cross
1*0
FIG. 51. Spinning.
FIG. 52. Warp-weighted Loom of
Simplest Type.
FIG. 48.
A Leal-
shaped
Sword.
The Bronze Age
these by going under and over the warp are called
the weft. From the discovery of loom weights, as
shown at the bottom of the warp-threads in Fig. 52,
in the Swiss lake villages and in England, it is
thought that the earliest looms were of this pattern,
which is called the Warp-weighted Loom; the
weights keeping the warp properly stretched.
The warp-threads are kept in place by yarn
threaded through them at the bottom. It is
probable that at first the weaver took the skein of
yarn in her right hand, and picking up the warp-
threads one or two at a time with the left hand,
passed the weft-threads through from side to side,
over and under the warp. She may have used a
wooden lath to beat the weft-threads up, and so
make the cloth compact.
Fig. 53 shows the next development, and our
drawing is based on the Scandinavian loom in the
Copenhagen Museum. The diagrams at the side,
A and B, illustrate the method of weaving, and we
shall find as we go along that, though the details
are elaborated, this principle remains. A piece of
fabric has been woven at the top downwards, and
below this the warp-strings hang down with their
weights on the ends. They are divided at 1 by a
123
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
shed-stick: the shed is the space through which the
weft is passed. At 2 is the heddle-rod, which is
attached to alternate warp-strings by loops. The
weaver then passes his shuttle through the space
between the warp-strings, above the heddle-rod in
A position, which is called the counter shed. The
heddle-rod is then pulled out to B position, which
brings the warp-threads which were at the back to
the front, and the weft is again passed through the
space now called the shed.
In this way the weaving proceeds, like darning,
first under and over the warp-strings, then over and
under. This would make a plain cloth; in
patterned work different coloured yarns can be
used, and instead of just over and under the warp,
you can go over and under and then skip two or
three, and so produce a pattern. On Greek vases
Penelope is shown working at an upright warp-
weighted loom like Fig. 53, but it has been de-
veloped by making the top cloth beam to revolve,
so that the cloth could be wound up as it is woven.
Fig. 54 shows what is called now a weaver's
comb, found at Glastonbury lake village, but we
doubt if this was used, as suggested, to comb or
pack the weft-threads tightly together; it would
124
The Bronze Age
have been an inconvenient way of doing it; so here
is a problem for our readers to determine the use of
the comb.
Fig. 55 shows a man shaving with a razor of a
very usual pattern in England during the Bronze
Age; he probably used oil instead of soap.
Fig. 56 is a costume plate for the three periods of
this book, and it is the central figures which are of
Bronze Age and so discussed here. The remains
of dresses of this period have been found in Jutland,
which suggest that the piece of stuff woven on the
looms was wrapped around the body without any
shaping. This is the case with the tunic of the man
and the skirt of the girl. In the case of the man
this was the beginning of the kilt. The girl's
bodice would have been roughly cut in kimono
shape, and the side seams sewn under the arms.
She is shown wearing a bronze disc fastened on to a
woven tasselled belt, and her hair was gathered
into a thread net, and fastened by long bronze pins.
She is wearing a jet necklace. The shoes of both
man and woman are of skin, and the man has a
circular cloak and cap of thick rough knotted wool.
We have seen on page 117 that one of the finds
at the Heathery Burn Cave was a point of deer
125
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
antler, about 5 inches long and curved in shape;
it is pierced twice on the radial lines of the curve,
and once at right angles. Similar pieces have
been found in the Swiss lake dwellings, and it is
suggested that these were the cheek bars of bridle-
bits, as Fig. 57. Probably the first bit was a twisted
leather thong, knotted at the width of the mouth,
and then the end passed through the cheek pieces
as reins. If the transverse hole of one of these
horn bars is examined, it will be found to be worn
smooth as by a leather rein. A sketch is added to
the drawing of a bronze bit from the Swiss lake
dwellings, which shows the influence of the early
antler type. The pony in Fig. 57 is wearing the
gold Peytrel, or breastplate, discovered at Mold,
Flintshire, which is now in the British Museum.
It would fit a pony of about twelve hands, and it is
embossed in the same style as the bucklers. When
one bears in mind that the warrior to whom it
belonged did not in all probability decorate his
horse, until he had satisfied his own vanity, we can
be quite sure that together they must have pre-
sented a splendid sight
The Heathery Burn discovery includes bronze
nave collars for chariot wheels. The nave of a
126
FIG. 53. Warp-weighted Loom of more Developed Type,
The Bronze Age
wheel is its hub, and this suggests spokes. The
first wheels were probably solid on their axle,
rather like a cotton reel. A, Fig. 58, shows
another type made up of three boards secured by
dovetailed clamps. B, Fig. 58, shows the start
of the spoke, not as we know it to-day, but
arranged more as a brace. The upright part
includes nave, two spokes, and parts of the felly or
rim, all in one piece of wood. The four other
spokes are braced between this and the remaining
parts of the felly. These come from the Swiss lake
dwellings, and must be early types, because a later
wheel has been f ound there which, though in bronze,
must have been founded in a wooden construction.
It is 19% inches in diameter, and has four spokes
radiating between nave and fellies, just like the
wheel of to-day. We know too that beautifully
turned wooden wheel naves have been found at
Glastonbury lake village, dating from the Early
Iron Age, and in what are called the chariot burials
of Yorkshire, of the same period, the iron tires of
chariot wheels have been discovered.
The original Aryan-speaking peoples, the fore-
runners of the Celts, are supposed to have possessed
ox-wagons, and it may well be that chariots were
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
introduced by the Goidels, who reached these
shores from 700 to 500 B.C.
The chariot does not give very much opportunity
to the maker to vary its shape. There must be a
floor framed up on the axle, around which would
come the body, perhaps of wickerwork covered
with hides. There would have been a centre pole
with yoke attachment to the horses. The chariot
of classical times must have been founded on some
such simple basis as Fig. 1.
This question of wheel naves, the discovery of jet
armlets at Heathery Burn Cave, and shale cups in
round barrows, all of which must have been turned
brings up the question of lathes. It is difficult to
see how a simpler turning contrivance than the
Pole Lathe (Fig. 78) could be made, and this may
date from the Bronze Age.
The Hill Forts and Camps were still the rallying
places of the people, and it is probable that places
like Badbury, Maiden Castle, and many others
which had been started by the Neolithic men were
improved upon in the Bronze Age. The trackways
on the hilltops between the camps would have
become more defined as traffic and trade routes,
with tumuli to mark the line. Fords may have
180
The Bronze Age
been replaced by bridges; there are two on Dart-
moor which are still called Celtic. Fig. 59 shows
one of these at Postbridge, and its construction is
just what we should expect from a people who had
inherited the building tradition of Stonehenge.
We should like to draw attention to the trumpet
shown in the hands of one of the figures. These
instruments derive their shape from the horns of
animals, which had been used for the same purpose
before. They were made at the end of the Bronze
Age, in that metal, and are supposed to have been
used by the Celtic people in warfare; of two types,
some have the mouthpiece at the side.
The possession of the bronze celt, with its better
cutting powers, meant that man could make ever
larger clearings in the forest, grow more corn, and
keep more herds. He was helped again, because
with his bronze sickle the harvesting of his crops
was not such a problem as when that useful imple-
ment was of flint, as Fig. 21. There is a beautiful
harvest scene in the eighteenth book of the Iliad
"where hinds were reaping with sharp sickles in
their hands. Some armf uls along the swathe were
falling in rows to the earth, while others the
sheaf-binders were binding in twisted bands of
181
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
straw. Three sheaf-binders stood over them, while
behind boys gathering corn and bearing it in their
arms gave it constantly to the binders; and among
them the king in silence was standing at the swathe
with his staff, rejoicing in his heart. And hench-
men apart beneath an oak were making ready a
feast, and preparing a great ox they had sacrificed;
while the women were strewing much white barley
to be a supper for the hinds/ 5 Game was less eaten
now than the domesticated animals; a proof that
life was becoming easier, and it was not necessary
to live by the chase. There are Scandinavian
and Ligurian rock carvings of Bronze Age date,
which show a primitive plough drawn by oxen, as
Fig. 60, but England was the very outpost of civili-
zation in those days, and we cannot be sure that ths
plough reached here so early; yet it would not have
needed so much cleverness to make as a bronze celt,
once the idea became known.
The hut of the hut circle was much the same as
in Neolithic times, built in the Berm of the camp
or just around it; but from remains which have
been found, it looks as if the hut itself was becom-
ing less pit-like, and rising out of the ground with
vertical side walls, as Fig. 67. It must be remem-
132
1
"8
O
I
I
The Bronze Age
bered that the Bronze Age men had their enemy the
wolf, waiting always just around the corner to cut
off stragglers, so we may be sure they lived in
communities.
Pottery was still hand-made, without a wheel,
but ornament was improving, and consisted of
straight lines arranged as chevrons, lozenges,
herring-bones, with dots and concentric circles, as
Fig. 61. No. 1 in Fig. 62 is a Beaker, or drinking
vessel, which was introduced on the East Coast by
the Beaker people, see page 27; it is found with
unburnt burials. No. 2 is a Food Vessel. No. 3 a
Cinerary Urn, made to hold the ashes of a cremated
burial; and No. 4 an Incense Cup. This does not
mean that the Bronze Age people used in-
cense, and the name has been suggested by the
pierced treatment of the little cups; these are found
in Round Barrows, and may have been used to
bring the sacred fire which started the funeral pyre.
It is thought that these types of pottery, which
were doubtless deposited with the dead, for their
use in the spirit world, are similar to those they
used in their everyday life. Bronze implements
were buried for the same reason, but were generally
limited to plain axes, knife daggers, and awls, and
135
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
this limitation points to some symbolical meaning
in those selected.
Burial was either by burying the body (in-
humation), or by burning it (cremation), and it is a
little bewildering to find both methods practised at
the same time, because inhumation is distinctly
Neolithic, and cremation a Celtic custom, and yet
this latter was practised before the Celts arrived.
This points to a survival of the long-headed people
and their ways, and the introduction of cremation
as a fashion by the earlier round-heads from the
Continent. A pit was dug in the ground, and a
stone cist, of four stones on edge covered by
another, made to cover it, or a hole cut in the
chalk, and the ground heaped over in the form of a
round barrow. In a stone country, the barrow was
made of heaped stones, and became a cairn. No. 1,
Fig. 63, is the type which is called a Bowl Barrow,
because it is like an inverted bowl. No. 2 a Bell
Barrow, because the ditch and bank made around
the outside give it that shape; and No. 3 is a Disc
Barrow.
A barrow is sometime called a Tumulus; in
Derbyshire, a Low; and in Yorkshire, a Howe.
Silbuiy Hi]], 6 miles W. of Marlborough, on the
136
The Bronze Age
Bath Road, is in the form of a round barrow, but it
is 135 feet high, and covers 6 acres. It is wholly
artificial, and in 1907, at the rates of pay then
obtaining, its cost was estimated at 20,000.
Carp and ring markings are common on the
coverstones of the cists or graves in the barrows,
and these are very similar to the markings found on
the churingas of the Australian aborigines (p. 121,
Part I.) .
Small objects called Sun Discs are found in
Ireland; these are made of gold about 2% inches
diameter, and have the same decorative idea as the
cup and ring markings, made up of concentric
circles. All these things point to Sun-worship
being characteristic of the Bronze Age; another
symbol, which is widely distributed, is the
swastika, also considered a symbol of the Sun.
It must be borne in mind that prehistoric man
was still held in thrall by magic and mystery; that
there were many things which were taboo or for-
bidden; like the Akikuyu his life and death were
governed by a complicated ritual. Cremation in
all probability was not practised to destroy the
body, but to purify it of sins and uncleanness, and
render the spirit pure for the life hereafter. The
137
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
spirit of the hapless Patroklos appears to Achilles
and urges him: "Thou sleepest, and hast forgotten
me, Achilles. Not in my life wast thou ever
unmindful of me, but in my death. Bury me with
all speed, that I pass the gates of Hades. Far off
the spirits banish me, the phantoms of men out-
worn, nor suffer me to mingle with them beyond
the River, but vainly I wander along the wide-
gated dwelling of Hades. Now give me . . . my
due of fire." We have seen that the implements
which were buried with Bronze Age man were
limited to certain symbolical types. Again we
find that in the actual cinerary urns were buried,
with the human remains, the bones of wild frm'mals,
like the fox, mole, and mouse; surely these typified
something. In the barrow itself, the bones of the
ox, goat, sheep, horse, pig, and dog have been found
with cremated burials; of these some may be the
remains of the funeral feasts, and the horse and dog
may have been slaughtered to accompany their
master, and the sacrifice of slaves and captives may
have formed part of the ceremony. Bone pins
have been found, charred by fire, as if they had
fastened the body in its shroud before it was
burned.
138
FIG. 57. Bridle and Gold PeytreL
The Bronze Age
Homer, in the twenty-fourth book of the
Iliad, gives a wonderful picture of the burial of
Hector:
"So nine days they gathered great store of wood.
But when the tenth morn rose with light for men,
then bare they forth brave Hector, weeping tears,
and on a lofty pyre they laid the dead man, and
thereon cast fire.
"But when the daughter of Dawn, rosy-fingered
Morning, shone forth, then gathered the folk
around glorious Hector's pyre. First quenched
they with bright wine all the burning so far as the
fire's strength went, and then his brethren and
comrades gathered his white bones lamenting, and
big tears flowed down their cheeks. And the bones
they took and laid in a golden urn, shrouding them
in soft-purple robes, and straightway laid the urn
in a hollow grave and piled thereon great close-set
stones, and heaped with speed a barrow, while
watchers were set everywhere around, lest the
well-greaved Achaians should make onset before
the time. And when they had heaped the barrow
they went back, and gathered them together and
feasted right well in noble feast at the palace of
Priam, Zeus-fostered king."
141
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
"Thus held they funeral for Hector, tamer of
horses."
Four fuller details are given in the twenty-third
Book of the funeral of Patroklos, and the funeral
games. Of how they went forth "to hew high-
foliaged oaks with the long-edged bronze/ 5 and
"splitting them asunder the Achaians bound them
behind mules," and so brought the wood to the
appointed place and made a great pile. "And
they heaped all the corpse with their hair that they
cut off and threw thereon." The pyre was "a
hundred feet this way and that, and on the pyre's
top sat the corpse." "And many lusty sheep and
shambling crooked-horned oxen they flayed and
made ready before the pyre; and taking from all of
them, the fat, great-hearted Achilles wrapped the
corpse therein from head to foot and heaped the
flayed bodies round. And he set therein two-
handled jars of honey and oil, leaning them against
the bier; and four strong-necked horses he threw
swiftly on the pyre, and groaned aloud. Nine
house-dogs had the dead chief: of them did Achilles
sky twain and threw them on the pyre. And
twelve valiant sons of great-hearted Trojans he
slew with the sword" to be consumed by the fire.
142
The Bronze Age
The north wind of the loud west "all night drave
they the flame of the pyre together blowing shrill/ 5
and after a barrow was made as already described
for the burial of Hector. Then followed the funeral
games, of which all can read in the twenty-third
Book of the Iliad. The next time we see a Round
Barrow, we must think of it, not as only so much
heaped earth, but rather as a visible sign of our own
Heroic Age. We must try and conjure up a
picture of the flaming pyre, and looking across the
smoking eddies of time, see the crowd of Bronze
Age warriors burying their chief.
Now we think we had better try and give our
readers some idea of the migrations and minglings,
the traffic and trade routes, which had developed
in the Bronze Age from the earlier Neolithic begin-
nings. We must first ask ourselves, why it is we
find these big movements of men, because, leaving
on one side the adventurous few, the general run of
people do not move until they are pushed. In the
Old Stone Age, man moved because he was a
hunter, and had to follow the chase to live, and in
the same way, even when he had settled down, he
could not be sure of a permanent home, unless it
was accompanied by a perennial food supply; if
143
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
this failed, then he had to break fresh ground. If
food was one of the reasons for his moving, he
naturally went away from the crowded central
area, or falling on his neighbours compelled them
to do so. Wars have played a terrible part in
migrations; we shall see in our time great move-
ments of people, as a result of the 1914-1918
struggle. The study of these movements is of
great value as bearing on the original homes of men.
That is why the archaeologists continually do dig;
they are hunting for first causes.
Geography will help us to discover the natural
causes of man's movements on certain lines. On
p. 29, Part L, we referred to the Loess land. Loess
is a sandy, chalky loam, deposited at first as dust
blown by great blizzards from the glaciers in the
Ice Ages. This loess is in a broad zone, which,
starting from the Ural Mountains, stretches across
South Russia to the Carpathians, and the Danube,
then through North-West Austria to South Ger-
many, and the North of France. It is shown by
dots on Fig. 64. The fine grain of the loess pre-
vented the spread of forests, and became instead
the great grasslands which have played so con-
siderable a part in the development of Europe.
144
The Bronze Age
Here have been bred great hordes of men, who in
times of drought, or when the regions became
overpopulated, have descended on the ancient
civilization of the East, and caused movements of
men. In the same way, the Arabian Desert has
been a great reservoir of hardy people who period-
ically have made exodus, with terrible happenings
to their prosperous neighbours, or have been
bribed to keep the peace.
The problem which confronts such a people is
similar to that of the hill-tribes of the N. W. frontier
of India. Here the Mohmands, Afridis, Wazirs,
and Mahsuds, perched on the barren hills, can only
live by levying tribute on the caravans passing
from the fat lands. Here through the great land
gate of the Kyber Pass, through all the ages,
immigrants have gone into India. The Aryans,
and Alexander, travelled on this line until we forced
a new way by sea.
If along a certain line similar kinds of pottery or
stone monuments are found, it is fair to assume
that these are the work of a particular type of
people moving along this line. If in Bronze Age
barrows, we find gold from Ireland, glass or beads
from the Mediterranean, amber from Scandinavia,
147
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
or in an Early Iron Age cemetery at Aylesford in
Kent, a bronze flagon from North Italy, it points
to trade and trade routes. We may be sure that
salt was traded.
We have already written, on page 23, of one of
the earliest migrations, that of the Mediterranean
people; on page 27, of the first of the round-heads;
on page 27, of the arrival of the Beaker people;
and, on page 28, of the movements of the Aryan-
speaking peoples. This brings up another factor
of great importance in the lives of men, and one
which is not concerned so much with their move-
ment, as with the circulation of some great idea,
that acted as a lever, and caused them to alter their
mode of living. The wonderful drawings and
paintings of the Aurignacian and Magdalenian
periods, in the Old Stone Age, which we discussed
in Part I., and the Megalithic buildings of the New
Stone Age, were wrought around some central
inspiration; again, in the latter half of the Bronze
Age, the prophets were at work, and we find the
introduction, by the Aryan-speaking peoples of
cremation and all that it may have implied. The
Minoan civilization was centred in the island of
Crete, the home of Minos, and then transferred
148
The Bronze Age
to Mycenae on the mainland of Greece. The
Cretans were of the Mediterranean stock; and if
reference is made to the chart on page 25, it
will be seen that final catastrophe overwhelmed
them about 1000 B.C. Their buildings were
megalithic, and they did not cremate their dead.
While the Minoan civilization was dying we hear
of the beginnings of the Heroic period of the
Hellenes. Jason, Agamemnon, Hector, and Odys-
seus are typical of wild men who came from the
N., finding their way down from the grasslands
shown on Fig. 64, and they were an Aryan-speaking
people who cremated their dead. The Achseans
were followed by the Dorians, and in the end a
glorious civilization was destroyed in Greece; but
its renaissance was so wonderful that to-day we
accept its ideas and philosophy as a standard of
quality against which we measure our own. This,
of course, is all beyond the scope of our book, but it
must be kept in the backgrounds of our minds;
meanwhile we will go back to our trade routes.
If the Mediterranean men found their way
through Gaul, on a line 1, 2, 3, Fig. 64, a later
route seems to have been from Marseilles (Massilia)
at 4, by the Rhone Valley to ChfiJons, where it
149
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
divided into three lines; one to the W. down the
Loire to 2, the second around the Paris basin at 5,
and the third through the Belf ort Gap, between the
Vosges and Jura Mountains, and down the Rhine
at 6. This latter route is an important one,
because it mingled people coming up from the
Mediterranean, with another type coming from the
regions to the N. of the European and Asiatic
Mountains.
Prof. Fleure, in his paper on the Racial History of
the British People, thinks that the Beaker people
came from Kiev on the Dnieper, S. of the Pinsk
Marshes (7, Fig. 64), and in Mr. Crawford's paper
on the Bronze Age Settlements, we find a map of
the localities in which their distinctive pottery has
been found; at 8, on the tributaries of the March
in Moravia; on the Bohemian tributaries of the
Elbe by Prague; around the junction of the Saale
and Elbe at 10; the mouth of the Oder at 11 ; on the
Zuyder Zee at 12; and again at the junction of the
Rhine and Main at 6. Mr. Crawford shows how
pottery beakers of the same type are found on our
eastern coasts from Caithness to Kent, and also
found on the W. coast of Scotland.
The W. coast of Denmark, and the S. Baltic,
150
FIG. 61. Bronze Age Ornament.
The Bronze Age
supplied amber during the Bronze Age, and the B.
M. Guide Book for that period gives the two main
trade routes through Germany to the Adriatic. One
started from Venice at 13, Fig. 64, up the valley
of the Adige, through the Brenner Pass, down the
Inn to Passau on the Danube, at 14, and then by
way of the Moldau to the Elbe, and so by the line
9, 10 to Denmark. The second route was from
Trieste to Laibach, and Graz, then to Pressburg on
the Danube (15, Fig. 64), from there up the River
March, across Moravia and through Silesia, along
the Oder at 16, then across Posen to the Vistula,
and Dantzig at 17. The spiral design of the
Bronze Age found in Scotland, Cumberland, Lan-
cashire, Northumberland, S. Ireland, and Merion-
ethshire, and which was common in Egyptian and
JSgean art, is supposed to have found its way here
on the first of these two routes.
We can now pass from land journeys to sea voy-
ages, and we will work back from Caesar's time. It
was the Veneti, maritime tribesmen occupying
what is now Vannes Morbihan, in Brittany, who
formed a confederation of the tribes in N. and N.
W. Gaul against the Romans. The Veneti seem
to have controlled the trade with Britain, and
1J5S
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
possessed a fleet of large ships with leathern sails,
high poops, and towers, but did not use oars, which
was the reason they were beaten on a calm day by
the Romans.
If we go back again to the time of Pytheas of
Marseilles, about 330 B.C., we find that he sailed to
Britain, and there was in his time a regular trade
between Cornwall and Marseilles, and probably a
sea-borne trade between Cornwall and Cadiz
(Gades) (18, Fig. 64), which was a centre of the
tin trade. From Cape Finisterre, Pjrtheas sailed
E. along the N. of Spain to Corbilo at 2, on the
mouth of the Loire, past Ushant to Land's End
(Belerium), where he landed. He sailed all round
Britain, and attempted an estimate of its circum-
ference, and indicated the position of Ireland.
Long before this, as we have just seen, the Beaker
people came across the North Sea, and settled on
our East Coast; so even the prehistoric period had
its great seamen and sea-faring traditions.
This enables us to take up the question of the
position of the Cassiterides (from the Greek word
for tin, cassiteros) , or the tin islands of the ancients :
were they really islands? The Greeks and Romans
obtained tin from Galicia (19, Fig. 64), Cornwall,
154
The Bronze Age
and possibly the Scillies, but the main supply was
from Cornwall, and possibly it is the British Isles
which were the Cassiterides.
Pytheas says tin was conveyed by the people of
Belerium in wagons, at low tide from the mainland,
to the island of Ictis, where it was purchased by
merchants, carried to Gaul, and transported on
pack-horses to Marseilles, the overland journey
taking thirty days. To start with there has been
considerable doubt as to the locality of Ictis; some
think it was S. Michael's Mount, others the Isle of
Wight or Thanet. The tin must have been mined
in Cornwall, and it would have meant a long over-
land journey to the two latter places.
We have seen there were good sailors, and the
general weight of evidence inclines us to accept
Dr. Rice Holmes' view, that the tin was shipped at
S. Michael's Mount, close to where it was mined.
The fact that the Veneti formed the confederation
against Caesar points to a predominance based on
trade, and they may have controlled the tin traffic,
in which case Corbilo (2, Fig. 64), would have been
a natural place for unshipment.
From Corbilo to Marseilles is approximately 500
miles oil 2, 1, 4, line, which means nearly 17 miles a
155
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
day for the pack-horses on the thirty days' journey.
The tin was cast into ingots, of the shape of ankle
bones, and 2 = load for a pack-horse.
Britain has always been rich in metals. Copper
is found in Cornwall, Cardiganshire, Anglesey,
Llandudno, and in Ireland. Tin in Cornwall and
on Dartmoor. Prehistoric man would have ob-
tained his copper from boulders, or found lumps of
ore on the hillside, and tin from the gravel beds of
streams. Ireland was El Dorado of the Old World,
and gold was found in the Wicklow Hills as late as
1795. It was shipped across to Carnarvonshire, or
the mouth of the Mersey, and from there found its
way down by way of Shrewsbury, Craven Arms,
Wootton Bassett, Sarum, and a deeper and more
navigable Avon to Christchurch, and so across to
Cherbourg. Another route appears to have been
from the Mersey, across the Peak District to
Peterborough and the Wash, where it was shipped
to Denmark and North Germany.
Mr. Crawford's paper on Early Bronze Age Settle-
ments is an interesting illustration of how, by map-
ping the finds of bronze implements, and gold
ornaments, trade routes are established. Sea-
borne traffic is shown by the large number of
156
PIG. 60. Plough.
FIG. 62. Bronze Age Pottery.
The Bronze Age
hoards of bronze implements, found near the sea-
coast, and around the estuaries of navigable rivers.
D6chelette proved the same thing in France.
Going right back to Neolithic or perhaps Palaeo-
lithic days, we find that flints were mined at
Grime's Graves (Grime = the devil) in Brandon and
at Cissbury near Worthing, and apparently only
roughly chipped there and then exported to be
finished elsewhere. They must have been carried
along the trackways to the hill forts. These old
trackways have interesting names. The Ridgeway
comes from Fenland along the Dunstable Downs
to Berkshire, the White Horse, and the Marl-
borough Downs; there is the Harroway coming
from Cornwall, and finding its way through Hamp-
shire to the Thames estuary; and the Pilgrims'
Way, along the southern slopes of the North
Downs, was an old road long before men tramped
its surface to Becket's shrine at Canterbury.
Here we must attempt to sum up what we have
found out about the Bronze Age. The introduction
of metal opened up new activities for man, and es-
pecially new opportunities for the individual. The
Neolithic man toiled with antler pick and shoulder-
blade shovel, and piled earth in the banked camps.
150
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
He chipped sarsen stones, and fidgeted them into
the upright position of menhirs and dolmens. It
was patient team work in which every one laboured
for the community. He needs must move from
camp to camp to find pasture for his flocks. In
much the same way primitive peoples like the Tas-
manians, Australian aborigines, and the Eskimo
are fully occupied in hunting to live; they have
not any leisure for fighting, or any possessions to
fight for. When everything has to be carried
about, the lighter you travel the better.
The earlier round-heads appear to have been
powerful, and may have been a pleasant people;
we have seen that they were buried side by side in
the same barrows with the older stock of Neolithic
long-heads, and this points to friendly conditions.
These early round-heads carried on the building
traditions of the New Stone Age; the hill camps
were improved, and they may have had some hand
in the completion of Stonehenge, but hardly a
trace of bronze has been found there.
As metal began to be more plentiful, larger
clearings were made in the forests, and man began
to settle down. He could grow more crops and
keep more cattle; he began to have possessions.
160
The Bronze Age
This was the opportunity for the individual; if a
man was harder working than his fellows or more
far-seeing, cleverer or more frugal, he could become
a man of property, and, founding a family, become
the chieftain. The tribe was gradually forged into
a nation, and the chieftain became a petty king.
We may be sure that this wider life brought in its
train a set of problems which had not confronted
the Neolithic herdsmen. As man began to have
more possessions, he became alarmed for the safety
of his own, or envious of those of others. The
elaborate planning of the later hill forts points to
the necessity lor being prepared to withstand raids
and it may be that we must look to the Bronze Age
for the beginnings of organized warfare.
A people who could arrange earth banks in so
subtle a fashion as the entrances of Maiden Castle,
Dorchester, give proof of being able to work to-
gether, and could have so attempted, in a gradual
way, to solve the problem of the right mode of
living. Without some code or tradition, the
community of a hill fort would have degenerated
into a rabble. We shall find as we go along that
man is tremendously concerned with this, and
seeks many ways for his own government. We
11 161
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
shall not be far wrong if we picture the Bronze Age
people as living, like the Homeric Greeks, under
kings and nobles, yet given some share in the
framing of the law.
162
CHAPTER
THE EARLY IRON AGE
HERE we must start by another reminder: that
at the beginning of the Early Iron Age, which first
saw the introduction of that metal, men did not
pack up all their old bronze implements and bury
them in hoards, to at once arm themselves with
iron. It was, on the contrary, a very gradual
change over, and for a long time both bronze and
iron were used side by side. This was so at Hall-
statt in the Noric Alps of the Austrian I'yroL
Here there have been salt mines from the earliest
times, and it must have been an important trading
centre. Excavations have been carried out in the
cemetery of the salt mines, and the implements
found there have been held to be distinctive of the
civilization at the beginning of the Early Iron Age,
when bronze was still in use.
The second half of the Early Iron Age is held to
be most typically shown by implements which
168
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
have been recovered from an old settlement, built
on piles, on the margin of a bay on Lake Neuch&tel,
near Marin, to which the name of La Tene, or the
Shallows, has been given. The finest develop-
ments of the Early Iron Age are to be found in this
country, since it fell under Rome's influence at a
later date than the Continent; in the same way the
Iron Age, or Late Celtic tradition, survived in
Ireland and parts of Scotland which were never
occupied by the Romans.
The people of England had become very mixed
racially. On page 23 we sketched the order of the
arrivals of the different peoples; and just as bronze
overlapped the use of iron, so the old peoples
carried on their everyday life and were not always
exterminated by the new-comers or even dis-
possessed of their lands. We saw how, in the early
Round Barrows, the later round-heads were buried
side by side with the earlier long-headed Iberians.
The next arrivals were the Goidels, or first of the
Celtic-speaking peoples. On page 30 we men-
tioned the generally accepted theory that they were
driven into the W. by their successors, the Bry-
thons, who were related to them and spoke another
variety of the Celtic language. This is now being
164
Fio. 63. Bronze Age Barrows.
FIG. 64. Traffic and Trade Routes.
The Early Iron Age
given up, and it is thought that there were never
any Goidels in England or Wales, but that they
went directly to Ireland, the Isle of Man, and Scot-
land, where their Celtic descendants still live.
TheBrythons were followed by the Belgse, who,
while they were responsible for the finest develop-
ments of what we now call Late Celtic art, were
not themselves of pure Celtic stock. They came
from where Belgium now is, and had more Nordic
blood than their predecessors; they were a half
Teutonic and fierce fighting people.
We saw on page 117 how the people of the Heath-
ery Burn Cave were of long-headed stock, which
yet had absorbed a Bronze civilization. Much the
same thing occurs in the Iron Age at Glastonbury
lake village, and we shall base our illustrations of
the period on the houses and implements discovered
there.
On page 191, Part I., we referred to the Aailian
dwellings, built over the water. In Neolithic times
this idea was developed, and in Switzerland there
were dwellings built on the margins of lakes. They
were first discovered at Ober-Meilen, Lake Zurich,
in 1853, and this started research, and the dis-
covery of similar structures in different parts of Eu-
167
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
rope. These may be divided into three types. (1)
The Swiss dwellings, built on platforms formed on
the tops of piles driven into the lake bed, which
date from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages and re-
sembled in form those which are now built by the
inhabitants of New Guinea. (2) Another type
in which, instead of pile foundations, large open
framings resembling log huts were sunk in the lake
and steadied by piles, much like the modern caisson
used by engineers for foundations. Dwellings of
this type were built in France aiid Germany during
the Early Iron Age. (3) The type like Glaston-
bury and the Scottish and Irish Crannogs. These
were really small islands formed in the middle of
marshes and being stockaded around, were raised
above the flood level by earth brought from out-
side; but the foundation was quaking bog, which,
as we shall see at Glastonbury, gave the inhabitants
a great deal of trouble. These date from the Early
Iron Age, and continued to be occupied in remote
spots, as places of refuge, until the seventeenth
century.
As the Swiss lakes became overpopulated,
people moved downhill into the Po valley, and
here are found the settlements which are called
168
The Early Iron Age
Terremare, from terra marna, or marl earth. The
peasants discovered that the earth from these old
settlements was valuable for agricultural purposes,
and in carting it away came across antiquities
which disclosed the secret.
There are literary references to lake dwellings.
Caesar said, writing of the Morini fa Belgic tribe in
Gaul, opposite Kent) : "They had no place to which
they might retreat, on account of the drying up of
their marshes (which they had availed themselves
of as a place of refuge the preceding year), and al-
most all fell into the power of Labienus" (Com. iv.
c. 38).
Venice itself, the Queen of the Adriatic, is a
glorified crannog which started as a place of refuge.
"They little thought, who first drove the stakes
into the sand, and strewed the ocean reeds for their
rest, that their children were to be the princes of
that ocean, and their palaces its pride. 5 *
Hereward the Wake maintained himself, in the
last stand against the Norman, in the marshy
recesses of the Isle of Ely.
Now we come to the interesting way by which
we in England came to be provided with a lake vil-
lage of our own. Mr. Arthur Bulleid of Glaston-
169
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
bury, when he was a young man, read Keller's
Suriss Lake Dwellings, and was fired with the idea
that there must have been a lake village in the
olden days in the swamps near Glastonbury. Re-
member that in this neighbourhood there is the
tradition of Arthur and his knights and the Isle of
Avalon:
"The island-valley of Avilion,
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly."
So whenever Mr. Bulleid went on his walks abroad
he kept a wide-open eye for any indications of a
possible site for a lake village- This was in the end
discovered by the mounds which had been left
where the hut foundations were, and though in the
course of 2000 years or more the land had been
drained, and became covered with vegetable soil
and turf, yet these mounds were still noticeable to
the observant eye. In the molehills were found
pieces of bone and charcoal, and when Mr. Bulleid
made a trial hole he came across more charcoal,
some pottery, and two oak beams. Again, a
labouring man, David Cox by name, told Mr. Bul-
leid that when he had been cleaning out a ditch
170
The Early Iron Age
about three-quarters of a mile away, in 1884, he
had found a black oak beam embedded in the soil,
and had to cut a piece off it to widen the ditch.
Cox reported that this beam looked like the end of
a boat, and this is what it turned out to be, and it
is shown in Fig. 69. So Mr. Bulleid's dream had
come true, and he had found his lake village. Ex-
cavations were started in 1892, since when the
village has been thoroughly explored, and in 1911
a splendidly detailed account was published in
book form by Mr. Arthur Bulleid and Mr. Harold
St. George Gray. Boys and girls should endeavour
to see these volumes, which are models of how such
work should be done.
Fig. 65 gives a bird's-eye view of the village.
The area was about 10,530 square yards, and the
foundations of the enclosed space were reinforced
with layers of logs, laid down crossways, and filled
in with brushwood, stones, and clay, but it could
never have been what the land agents describe as a
"desirable building site." During the time that
Glastonbuiy was occupied, a bed of peat accumu-
lated in some places 5 feet thick, and the inhabit-
ants were constantly rebuilding. The village was
palisaded around, with piles driven into the peat
173
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
and filled in with wattle and daub. This method
was also used in the construction of the huts
there were 80 to 90 of these, roughly circular in
shape, and varying from 18 feet to 28 feet in diame-
ter; they may not all have been houses; some were
probably used as barns or workshops. The huts
contained a central hearth, as Fig. 66, of flat stones
let into a clay bed, and as many as 9 or 10 hearths
have been found added one on the top of the other,
as the foundations settled down into the bog. The
wattled walls of the huts were daubed with clay;
this is known because pieces of clay showing the
marks of the wattles were discovered in the ex-
cavations. Each hut had a central pole or roof-
tree, than this we can gather little more.
We have to look to a primitive people, then, to
find parallel building traditions. The Akikuyu, of
the Kokuyu hill country, in British East Africa,
build to-day and live in houses which must be the
living spit of those at Glastonbury. Fig. 67 shows
these on the left hand side of the section, and on
the right is the suggested form of the Glastonbury
hut. We have made this drawing from the plan,
and carefully detailed particulars in Mr. and Mrs.
Routledge's book, With a Prehistoric People. It is
174
The Early Iron Age
an iateresting fact that the constructional problem
whieli the AJdkfiyu have to face, when they build
their huts, is similar to the one which confronted
Wren when he designed the dome of St. Paul's
Cathedral.
We have seen how Neolithic man built little
houses Tdth rafters leaning against a central pole,
and this was a very sound method. So long as the
feet of the rafters were firmly fixed into the soil,
the house stood firm, in gales and under a load of
snow; the drawback was that there was no head-
room around the walls, and so one had to sit there
as you do now in a bell-tent. A wall was raised
around to give headroom, as Fig. 19, and this was
satisfactory so long as the wall was built of stones
heavy enough to provide a sufficient abutment for
the thrust of the rafters. The trouble came when
the same idea was attempted with thin wooden
walls, which would have been overturned.
The Akikdyu first set up about 19 forked posts in
holes dug in a circle of about 15 feet diameter. To
appreciate the cleverness of the construction, you
must remember that none of the wood is bigger
than a man's arm. Four posts are set up on an
oblong in the centre about 4 feet 6 inches by 3 feet.
175
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
Around the tops of the outer posts, long pliant rods
are woven, and these form the wall plate, and take
the thrust of the roof. Again ties are woven from
this wall plate across from side to side, picking up
the tops of the centre posts on the way. Wren
took up the thrust of the brick cone which supports
the dome and lantern at St. Paul's, by an iron ship's
cable, which was let into the stone, and run in with
molten lead. We think the rest of the construction
of the Akikuyu hut is explained by the drawing.
At Glastonbury there were also found remains
of an earlier type of hut, built with wall plates rest-
ing on the tops of piles driven into the peat. The
huts were apparently oblong in shape, with hurdled
walls mortised to the wall plates. Of these we can-
not attempt any reconstruction, but of the circular
huts we can be more sure, and it seems fair to as-
sume, from what we know, that they resembled
those of the Akikuyu.
This building in wattle and daub continued as a
tradition in Glastonbury. William of MaJmes-
bury, writing in the twelfth century A.D., mentions
the "Ealde Chirche," the ancient church of St.
Mary of Glastonbury, built in the seventh century
of wattlework.
176
FIG. 66. Hut Interior at Glastonbury.
The Early Iron Age
We know that the Glastonbury people used
canoes, for one was found by David Cox, to which
reference has been made, and some form of canoes
would have been absolutely necessary to the in-
habitants of the village. Judged by the peat
deposit, all this district around the river Brue must
have been a vast morass in the olden days, and in
times of flood an inland sea. The canoe (Fig. 69)
is of the greatest interest, about 18 feet long; it has
a flat bottom 2 feet wide, 10 feet from the prow,
and its maximum depth inside is 12 inches. It is
becoming boat-like, and shows a notable develop-
ment on Fig. 6, having a shapeable prow, and a
graceful rise, or sheer, at bow and stern. The lake
villagers had a landing-stage and dock attached to
their home, with vertical walls made of stout
grooved oak planks driven into the peat, into which
were fitted horizontal boards, as Fig. 69. We know
they went fishing, because lead net sinkers have
been found. Their canoes would have been used to
take them to their cornfields on the mainland, the
island village had no room for these. Fig. 70 shows
a piece of timber found at Glastonbury, and shaped
in such a way that it is thought it may have been
used as a hand plough, but we are very doubtful of
179
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
its suitability for this. Many querns and mill-
stones have been found: the earlier type as Fig. 22,
and the later rotary types as Fig. 71. In these the
lower stone was fixed, and had a wooden pivot in
the centre. The top stone was fitted over this, and
corn fed through the hole, made large enough to
allow it, passed down and was ground between the
upper and lower millstones, coming out at the sides
as flour. Small cakes were found at Glastonbury,
made of unground wheat grain which had been
mixed probably with honey and baked.
The villagers also owned horses; many harness
fittings have been found, bits, and the wheels of
chariots. Whether the horses were transported to
the mainland on rafts or stabled there we cannot
be sure. In the summer they may have been pas-
tured on the mainland, within the protection of
a camp, and in the winter ferried across to the vil-
lage to share the huts with the inhabitants. The
people doubtless used their canoes to carry on trade
with the surplus goods which they manufactured
and wished to exchange for other commodities.
The two iron currency bars found point to this
(seep. 221).
When we pass to the life carried on within the
180
The Early Iron Age
village, we have proof of many and varied activi-
ties, but it will perhaps be well to start by a de-
scription of the iron working, which gives the
period its name.
Fireclay crucibles have been found at Glaston-
bury, and funnels (tuyere) for conducting the blast
into the furnace, but it is thought that the crucibles
were used for melting copper and tin, to make
bronze, as described on page 111.
So far as iron working was concerned, it is prob-
able that this was carried out as the present-day
smelting operations of the Akikdyu of British East
Africa, which we have shown in Fig. 72. The iron
ore is collected from surface workings in the form
of an iron sand; this is washed to get rid of the clay
and other substances, so that the iron grains are
left. The furnace consists of a kidney-shaped hole
in the ground lined with clay. The ore is placed in
the pit of the furnace, and a charcoal fire started,
then more ore and charcoal are added as needed.
The blast is introduced at one end of the furnace,
which is slightly lower than the middle, by means
of a fireclay funnel (tuyere). In the funnel are in-
troduced the wooden pipes of the bellows, which
are in this way protected from the fire. Two bel-
181
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
lows are used, of goats' skins sewn into the shapes
of rough cones, or fools' caps, the pipes being at-
tached to the small ends. At the larger ends of the
bellows, which are open, are fitted two short sticks,
sewn to the skins, but leaving one-third of the cir-
cumference free. The smith's boy holding the
two sticks of the two bellows, two in each hand,
opens first one bellows, as if the sticks were hinged
at one end, and then the other, and closing the
opening by shutting his hand, depresses the sticks,
and kneads the ends of the bellows, sending for-
ward a continuous blast into the furnace. This
blast raises the temperature of the furnace, just as
a fire is brightened up by ordinary bellows.
The ore is reduced to a sticky mass rather than
molten metal; furnaces which will generate a suf-
ficient heat to make the metal flow, only date from
the seventeenth century, and we do not find any
cast iron before then. The lump of iron is left in
the furnace overnight to cool, and then turned out
in the morning, and broken up into sizeable pieces
which are forged up into ingots or blooms. This
iron is very pure and ductile, and so can be readily
forged; being smelted with charcoal it is free from
the sulphur which comes from coal when it is used,
182
The Early Iron Age
and which makes the iron short and brittle. The
fireclay crucibles we have referred to, were buried
in a hole in the ground, and the fire and blast
arranged as in the case of the iron smelting.
In Messrs. Bulleid and Gray's book are shown
illustrations of all the finds in the excavations, and
here we can see daggers, spear-heads, swords,
knives, bill-hooks, sickles, saws, gouges, adzes,
files, bolts, nails, rivets, keys, and bits. The
weapons are few and far between, and this is per-
haps one of the reasons the villagers fell an easy
prey to their enemies in the end. The man in Fig.
66 is holding an iron bill-hook in his hand, of a
quite modern shape; and Fig. 73 shows one man
using a curiously shaped saw, with the teeth ar-
ranged so that it cuts on the up-stroke, while the
other has an adze, which is first cousin to the axe.
Fig. 74 shows a man using a particularly beautiful
iron knife found at Glastonbury.
Leaving iron working, we can turn to bronze,
which still continued in use in the Early Iron Ages
as it does to-day.
Fig. 75 shows a bronze finger-ring, and Fig. 76 a
penannular (almost a ring) brooch. The top
drawing shows how the pin, which was loose on the
185
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
ring, was pushed through the material, and then
fastened by moving the ring round a little, and
clipping it under the pin. This form of brooch
was the forerunner of the buckle.
Fig. 77 shows three bronze brooches, or fibtdce.
These fastenings came into use in the Swiss and
Italian lake villages where cloth was first woven.
The three examples drawn here, show the develop-
ment of these pretty little things, which the archaeo-
logists associate with the lake village of La Tene,
on the lake of Neuch&tel, and are called types 1, 2,
and 3, though only type 2 occurs at La T&ae itself.
In No. 1 the foot is bent back until it touches the
bow of the brooch. In No. 2 the end is no longer
free but actually attached to the bow, and in No. 3
the foot and bow are designed as one.
On the right-hand side of Fig. 77 we have drawn
the development of the springs of these brooches
and in each case the pin of the brooch is shown
vertically. In those of Hallstatt the springs are on
one side of the head; those of La T&ie are bilateral.
No. 1 shows the earliest type, like that of a safety-
pin of to-day; so our old friend is of ancient descent.
No. 2 has a double coil; and in 3 the pin has one
coil to the right, and the wire is then carried to the
186
The Early Iron Age
left, where, after a treble coil, it swings up to form
the bow of the brooch. In 4 there is a double coil
on one side, and in 5 a treble coil, but the tension
is increased by the ingenious way in which the loop
or chord across is taken under the arch of the bow;
the whole pin coils, loop, and bow of the brooch
being in one unbroken length. In 6 we have pin
and coils to the right, the loop or chord, and the
coils on the left in one piece; but the bow is a sepa-
rate part which is hooked under the chord. 8 is
on the same principle but the spring is covered with
a metal sheath attached to the bow. In 7 the bow
is fixed on to a smaller loop. We consider these
springs of the greatest importance. 1 dates from
perhaps as early as 1400 B.C., and 8 takes us up to
the Roman occupation, and so far as we know 1 is
the first application of the spring. The old brooch-
maker who, in 1400 B.C., tapped his bronze wire
around a rod and discovered the spring, would have
been rather surprised if he could have looked into
the future and seen the many ways to which his
invention would be applied; for example, that we
should tell the time by little spring-driven
machines, which we call watches.
There were excellent potters at Glastonbury,
187
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
and Fig. 66 shows some of the pottery found there.
The greater part of it appears to have been hand-
made, as described on page 52, but the very beauti-
ful pot in the foreground has been turned on some
sort of wheel. We saw (p. 54) how the Akiktiyu
build up their pots on a pad of leaves, which makes
it possible to turn the pot round as it is being made,
and it is probable that the potter's wheel was pre-
ceded by a turn-table, on the lines of the rotary
quern (Fig. 71) . If a heavy block of stone or wood
were pivoted in this way, its weight would aid the
momentum of its spin and be very helpful in
making pottery. This early type is suggested at A,
Fig. 87.
SPINNING AND WEAVING
Spinning and weaving were carried on in the vil-
lage, and the spindle whorls and loom weights sug-
gest that this work was done as already described
on page 120.
TURNING
There were expert coopers at Glastonbury, who
knew how to build up tubs with wooden staves and
hoops. They were good turners. There is a
turned bowl, shown in the lower right-hand corner
188
The Early Iron Age
of Fig. 66, which was decorated in addition with a
beautiful running pattern cut in an incised line.
There is no evidence of what the Glastonbury
lathe was like, but Fig. 78 shows a very primitive
type in one in the Chilterns, called the Pole Lathe.
It is difficult so see how anything could be simpler
than this, and it is obviously a development from
the Bow-drill shown on page 135, Part I. In the
Chilterns the men who make chair legs buy a fall of
beech in the woods, and to save cartage build them-
selves little huts and turn the chair legs there. The
supports for the lathe are often two trees growing
close together, which they cut down at a height
suitable for the two planks forming the bed of the
lathe, into which the poppet heads are fixed. A
third sapling is bent down, and the cord, which is
to supply the "power," is fastened to this, passed
around the chair leg, and connected to the treadle
under. A rough tool-rest is provided. The turn-
ing is done on the down stroke, which revolves the
chair leg towards the turner, and when he takes
the pressure off the treadle, the pole pulls it up
again ready for another cut. The work proceeds
very rapidly, and we have seen chair legs turned,
one in a minute.
191
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
In our sketch we have shown the turner making a
wooden bowl, like the ones which were used before
the days of enamelled iron. The block of wood
was placed directly against one centre of the lathe
and on the other side came a circular piece of wood
around which the cord was passed; this was put on
to the other centre of the lathe and fixed to the
block for the bowl by four brads. This, we think,
shows that the so-called Kimmeridge Coal-money
is the core left from turning shale bracelets on pole
lathes. Coal-money is found near the Kim-
meridge shale beds on the Dorset coast, and con-
sists of circular discs, having a hole on one side, and
a square recess or two or three smaller holes on the
other. The diagram at the bottom of Fig. 78
shows how we think a shale bracelet was turned on
a pole lathe. AA are the poppet heads, and BB
the centres, C is the circular piece of wood around
which the cord was passed, fitted on to one centre,
and let into one side of the piece of shale, in
a square recess, or by two or three separate pins.
The shale being in contact with the other centre.
The turner trued up his bracelet, and set its outside
shape first, and then making a cut on each face,
finally detached it as dotted line D, and the Kini-
192
The Early Iron Age
meridge coal-money was the useless core, and never
used as money. One great advantage of these
old pole lathes was that the turner could make two
or three bowls in graduating sizes from the same
block of wood.
The Glastonbury carpenters used axes, and we
do not realize in these days what a useful tool this
can be, that is, if you are a craftsman and not a
wood butcher. Alex. Beazeley, a pleasant architect,
and most architects are pleasant, wrote in 1882,
that the Swedish carpenters at Dalecarlia and Norr-
land, "require no other tools than the axe and the
auger, and despise the saw and plane as contempt-
ible innovations, fit only for those unskilful in the
handling of the nobler instruments: they will trim
and square a log forty feet long as true as if it had
been cut in the sawmill, and will dress it to a face
that cannot be distinguished from planed work."
As we jog along we shall find the truth of this, that
so long as man is master of his tools we get good
work, but when the machine masters the man we
have indifferent results.
Fig. 79 shows that there were bad boys at
Glastonbury, or perhaps men, who gambled with
dice.
*3 193
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
The form of lake villages suggests that they were
built by timorous people, living in fear of fiercer
neighbours. They appear to have had their begin-
nings with the long-headed Mediterranean race,
or Iberians of the New Stone Age. This is borne
out at Glastonbury. The burial-place of the
inhabitants has not been discovered, but during the
excavations human remains were found of this old
Iberic type, which, here in the W., had lived on,
and kept themselves free from intermarriage with
the round-headed invaders of the Bronze Age.
They were small and dark 5 feet 3 inches to 5 feet
8 inches in height. Oval-headed, with a cephalic
index of 76, which makes them of mesaticephalic
type (see p. 48, Part I.). The same race lived at
Worlebury Camp, at the W. end of the trackway
on the Mendips, and in Romano-British times in
the villages of Woodcuts, Rotherley, and Wood-
yates, in Cranbourne Chase, down to Saxon times.
At Glastonbury their fears held true, and some
little time before the Roman occupation, final
disaster descended on the village, and they were put
to the sword: perhaps by the Belgic invaders, who
were long-heads, but of an altogether tougher
fighting breed. Caesar (Com. v. c. 48) tells us how
194
Fift 58. Wooden Wheds.
PIG. 71. Grinding Com.
The Early Iron Age
the Nervii, when attacking Cicero's camp, set fire
to the thatch of the huts, by discharging redhot
clay sling bullets. Many of these were found at
Glastonbury, and help us to visualize the final scene.
We have noted that very few arms were found in
the excavations, and the little dark men only
wanted to be left quietly alone, and be allowed to
get on with their work; and this is what they did
until they were discovered. Thus their outlying
possessions and crops would have been destroyed
and the village surrounded. The Glastonbury
men could only have watched the scene, in shudder-
ing misery, from behind their stockades, and then
the invaders, using perhaps the dug-outs they
had collected from the waterside, would have
paddled across the lake, and discharging their red-
hot clay bullets have fired the thatch. When
the flames subsided the few survivors would have
been put to the sword. Yet the little dark men
have had their revenge; from the very start of their
career they appear to have lived in communities;
it may have been a tradition they brought with
them from the shores of the Mediterranean. The
Belgse who oppressed them, like the later Anglo-
Saxons, whom they resembled, preferred a more
197
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
open-air life, and to-day their fair-haired descend-
ants have the same tastes.
Prof. Fleure in his paper on the Racial History of
ike British People, sums up the matter thus:
"These descendants of the Neolithic people are the
long-headed, long-faced, dark-haired, brown-eyed
people that form so strong an element of the popu-
lation of big English cities. They seem better
able than all other types to withstand slum condi-
tions, so that in the second generation of great city
life they have arisen in their millions to form once
more, after many days, almost a majority, perhaps,
of the population of S. Britain." So the tale of the
Iberians is not yet completed.
We have seen how fond the ancient Britons were
of wattle-work, and on page 176 how it was used
even for the construction of churches. Boats
were made in this way, and Fig. 80 shows a coracle
of which the wattled framework was covered with
hide. Primitive peoples frequently make boats in
this way. Fig. 81 shows the framework of the
Umiak, or women's boat of the Eskimo, made of
driftwood, laced together with thongs, without a
single nail, and covered with skins; and Fig. 82
how it is fitted with a mast, and square sail of
198
FIG. 73. Saw and Adze.
FIG. 75~
Bronze Finger-
ring.
PIG. 74. An Iron Enaf e.
FIG. 76." Penannu-
lar Brooch.
The Early Iron Age
membrane. Fig. 83 is an interesting canoe made
by the Australian natives, with bark sewn on to a
framework. Fig. 84 shows swords of the Early
Iron Age. No. 1 shows an early Halstatt pattern,
and 2 a later La T6ne type shown in scabbard.
The scabbards were in bronze, and frequently
ornamented with very beautiful designs. The
sword blade was of iron, with a tang on to which
was fitted a bronze mount to the handle, the latter
formed of bone or wood threaded on to the tang.
Fig. 84 also shows two iron spear-heads of
the same period which are rather different from
the leaf -shaped patterns of the Bronze Age. The
shields were now oblong in shape, as that of the
Belgic man in the costume plate (Fig. 56). This
splendid work of art can be seen at the British
Museum, and is made of bronze decorated with
enamels. This form of decoration appears to have
developed out of the use of coral, added as an orna-
ment to bronze. Then the Early Iron Age metal
worker made studs, with an enamel surface, and
pinned these to the bronze. This led the way to
the crowning glory of his work, Champlev enamel-
ling. Here the field of the design was graved out of
the metal, and the ground being first scored to give
201
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
a key was filled in with the fused enamel, which
being polished, was finished flush with the face.
Pig. 85, of an enamelled harness ornament, shows
to what mastery of line the designers had now
advanced. Think of the splendid appearance of an
Early Iron Age chieftain; his helmet, shield, and
horse-mountings all bronze, not dull as now but
shining like gold, with the enamels afire like liquid
rubies. The earliest enamels were of one colour,
red.
In the Early Iron Age, costume had developed
and weaving in brilliant colours was practised. It
is thought that these were combined into primitive
tartans. As in the Bronze Age, a piece of material
was folded around the body, in the form of a kilt,
and this with a sleeveless vest, and a cloak which
was semicircular in shape, completed a man's
attire. The shoes were cut out of hide, with straps
attached, and gathered round the ankle. The
Biythons appear to have introduced the loose
trousers, which originated with the Persians and
Scythians. The women wore a long tunic reaching
to the ankles, with short sleeves. Women, men,
and horses, all alike, wore beautiful tores, belts,
and brooches, of bronze and enamel.
Fie. 78'
The Early Iron Age
Another thing which was not found at Glaston-
bury was the burial-place, so that we do not know
what objects they buried with their dead; fortu-
nately for archaeologists, there are many other
Early Iron Age cemeteries where this information
can be gained. A very important one is at Arras,
near Market Weighton, East Riding; here the
barrows are small, circular in form, not more than
2 feet high by about 8 feet diameter. The body
was not cremated but buried in a very contracted
position in a cist, or grave cut in the chalk. The
skulls show the people to have been long-headed
(dolichocephalic), and here for the first time iron
is found with the body. This means either that
there had been a reversion to the old burial customs
of the Neolithic people, or these were introduced
afresh from the Continent; in any case the
cremation of the Bronze Age passes away. Again,
the long-headed skulls may point to a survival of
Neolithic people, who had absorbed the old round-
headed Bronze Age invaders, or to fresh invasions
from the Continent . Some of the barrows at Arras
and in Yorkshire, were found to contain the
remains of chariots, and these resemble the chariot
burials in France; this rather points to the York-
205
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
shire barrows being the work of invaders. The
tires of the chariots there are about 2 feet 8 inches
in diameter, and parts of the oak rims, or fellies,
were found, mortised for as many as 16 spokes.
There were nave collars for the hubs, of iron plated
with bronze, and the skeletons of horses of about
13 hands. We saw the beginnings of chariots at
Heathery Burn Cave in the Bronze Age, and it is
obvious that by the time of the Early Iron Age
these played an important part in everyday life.
We have attempted a reconstruction in our Frontis-
piece, Fig. 1. Many of the Yorkshire barrows
suggest that women were buried in them. In one
was found one hundred glass beads of a beautiful
deep blue colour, ringed and spotted with white;
others were of dear green glass with a white line.
There were rings of amber and gold, and bracelets
of bronze.
In the mounds were broken pottery, and the
bones of animals, and charcoal, as if there had been
a funeral feast. An iron mirror was found at
Arras, very much rusted of course. Fig. 86 shows
one of bronze of a more usual type.
We can now pass on to the latest type of burials
in this country, and there is but little doubt that
206
PIG. 80. Corades.
The Early Iron Age
these were the work of Belgic invaders. They
were discovered in 1886, at Aylesford in Kent.
This was in the Belgic country, and here we find
that cremation had again been introduced, and the
Belgse appear to have maintained this custom.
The cist, or grave, covered by a barrow, had
passed out of fashion, and its place had been taken
by a circular pit, about 3 feet 6 inches deep, the
sides and bottom of which were daubed with chalky
clay. In the pit were found burnt bones, and the
fragments of the pottery cinerary urns, in which
there had been placed a pail, flagon, skillet, or
shallow saucepan, and brooches all of bronze. The
custom evidently still persisted of burying objects
which had belonged to the dead, because it had
some symbolical meaning; or for their use in the
spirit world; or because it would have been unlucky
to retain the objects in everyday use. The pail is
of the type carried by the Belgic girl in the costume
plate (Fig. 56). The flagon of a very beautiful
shape must have been imported from Italy.
The Aylesford pottery marks a great advance*
It is of very graceful shape, and must have been
turned on a wheel, and given a lustrous black sur-
face in the firing. The wheel may have been of
* 209
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
the turntable type described on page 96, and shown
at A in Fig. 87, or the potters may have advanced
so far as the wheel shown at B. This is a very
primitive type, which was used until lately for
making flower-pots and bread-pans.
Except for this important detail of the reintro-
duction of cremation, the Belgse do not seem to
have effected any very great alteration in the
everyday life of the times. They were a fierce
fighting people, and conquered the S. E. districts.
This gave them possession of the iron mines of the
Sussex Weald, which was to be the Black Country
of England until the eighteenth century.
The Brythons and the older Goidelic stock of the
Bronze Age, and the people of Iberian descent as at
Glastonbury, learned to use iron but continued to
live their lives in their own way. Fig. 88 illustrates
the use of bronze bowls as water-clocks. These
were put to float in a larger bowl, and being per-
forated at the bottom, slowly filled, and in a certain
time sank, and were then emptied by an attendant
and refloated, to re-sink in another period. Fig.
89 shows late Celtic ornament. We saw by Fig.
61 how the Bronze Age people's patterns were
chevrons, lozenges, and concentric circles, and the
210
PIG. 77. Brooches and Brooch Springs.
PIG. 81. Framemork of Umiak.
PlG. 82. Eskimo Umiak.
The Early Iron Age
Early Iron Age saw the introduction of the curve,
and the endless possibilities which come about
through combination of curves.
Leaving the smaller works of man, we find that
the old hill forts were not yet abandoned; Worle-
bury, at the W. end of the Mendips; Hod Hill, near
Blandford; Bigbury, on the Pilgrims' Way; Winkel-
bury, S. Wilts; Mt. Caburn, Lewes; and Cissbury,
near Worthing, have all yielded Late Celtic remains
and the trackways between the hill forts had
developed into an entirely adequate road system.
We do not mean by this macadam surfaces, granite
curbing, and paved foot-paths; the roads would
have been well-worn grass tracks on the high lands,
with stone cobbles perhaps in the marshy places.
Just as we were finishing this book, we came
across Early British Trackways, by Mr. Alfred
Watkins, and we recommend this to our readers as
containing an idea of the greatest interest. The
book came about, because Mr. Watkins 9 attention
was attracted by a straight line on a map, which
appeared to pass through a certain class of objects.
On exploration it was found that this line consisted
in parts of old trackways which at one time had
linked up places on the line. Having got the
213
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
idea, Mr. Watkins proceeded to test it wherever
possible. Taking the 1-inch scale ordnance, he
selects barrows or tumuli, castle mounds or camps,
standing stones and menhirs, churches, and wayside
crosses, and sticking a pin in the map on one, the
game is to see how many places can be found on a
line; when there are not less than four, the actual
country is surveyed, when, more often than not, a
piece of modern road may farther along become a
grass track, and then be lost in ploughed land, to
reappear beyond as a footpath. This at once
fired us, and out came our maps. We found that
from where the Bidgeway and Fairmile descend the
Berkshire Downs, and come down to the Thames
by the Ferry at South Stoke, if a straight line is
drawn on the map, from the trigonometrical station
of the Ordnance Survey on White Hill 293 above
the Ferry, to the camp at Ravensburgh Castle in
the parish of Hexton in N. Herts, about 40 miles
away, it picks up many interesting points. There
is another trigonometrical station on Harcourt
Hill 610, then Whiteleaf Cross cut in the chalk
near Monks Rizborough and the mound on Pulpit
Hill. From Beacon Hill above Aston Clinton you
look down on The Moat at Pilstone as a reflection
214
FIG. 83. A Sewn Bark Canoe.
FIG. 84. Early Iron Age Swords and
Spears.
FIG. 86. The Bronze Mirror.
FIG. 85. Enamelled Harness.
The Early Iron Age
point at a lower level, and to the N.E. can see
Icknield Way coming over the shoulder of Beacon
EG11 at Ivinghoe. Then, again, the Five Knolls
tumuli by Duristable point the way to Ravens-
burgh Castle, and Icknield Way meanders along
the escarpment of the Chilterns, sometimes on the
line and sometimes a little below it.
It can hardly be coincidence, which though its
arm be long, could scarcely stretch for 40 miles
and put so many points on the same straight line.
With some experience of land surveying, we think
we should find it a very difficult matter to lay out
such a line, up hill and down dale, over 40 miles of
country, of so diverse a character as the Chilterns,
and this is what these old road surveyors seem to
have done. If this was the case, then we have to
accept the fact that long before the Romans there
were men laying out roads by very much the same
methods as the Royal Engineer surveyors of the
Ordnance Survey; so much was this the case, that
when we came to make our own survey we accepted
the view-points of prehistoric man as being suitable
for trigonometrical stations.
It is just one more illustration, which goes to
prove that when we think of prehistoric men as
217
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
just so many roving barbarians we are hopelessly
out of touch with truth.
As the trackways were developed, and people
were better able to travel, the tribal centres grew
into the capitals of kingdoms, the chieftains be-
came kings. Camulodunum, or Colchester, was the
chief town of the Trinovantes; Verulamium, or St.
Albans, of the Catuvellauni, and Cassivellaunus
was their king. Caesar is supposed to have referred
to St. Albans, when he wrote of "an oppidum with
the Britons is a place amidst dense forest, fortified
by a rampart or ditch, whither it is their habit to
assemble to escape an enemy's raid." Corinium
(Cirencester) was the home of the Dobuni; Calleva
(Silchester) of the Atrebates; London of the Cantii.
Women were allowed to be Queens. Cartismandua
was Queen of the Brigantes, and their country was
the Pennines, and Boudicca (Boadicea) of the
Iceni.
In the Bronze Age chapter, we discussed Trade
and Traffic on page 143, and this brings up the
question of money or the currency which is used as
a medium for that exchange of goods, which is the
basis of Trade. It has been suggested that the
gold bracelets of the Bronze Age may have been
218
FIG. 87. A Potter's WheeL
The Early Iron Age
used as money; these have been found with rings
fastened to them, and are called Ring-money, and
the idea does not seem too wildly remote. This is
hardly the case with Fig. 90, which illustrates iron
currency bars, and we can imagine our readers,
unless they are born financiers, saying, "How on
earth could anyone buy anything with a sort of iron
walking-stick?" We are quite sure that many
boys and girls have been puzzled by the various
methods which have been adopted by different
peoples. There was the British sovereign of gold
now unhappily extinct; its dirty greasy successor,
so typical of the time, the Treasury note; one has
heard of cowrie-shells, and so on; in all parts of the
world different things seem to be used, but none so
odd perhaps as the iron bars of the Early Iron Age.
Of the two currency bars found at Glastonbury,
one is 27$ inches long, and weighs 4666 grains, the
other, 2H inches, but much thicker than number
one, weighs 9097 grains. Mr. Reginald Smith has
identified currency bars with the tdece ferrece of
Caesar (Bell Gall. V. 12), and it is thought that there
were six varieties, the British unit being about
4770 grains. Bars of *, i, 1, H, 2, and 4 have been
identified. The map (Fig. 8) shows where bars have
221
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
been found in England, and is a proof of the wide
distribution of trade even in the Early Iron Age.
Perhaps we can give an illustration which will
show how these things become accepted as currency.
In remote villages in this country in pre-war days,
it was usual to have a settling-up day once a year
after harvest; during the rest of the year the people
ran bills, which they chalked up on the barn-door.
At settling time the farmer would go to the miller
and say, "How do we stand," to which the miller
replied, "I have ground your corn, but you had
some of the flour, and I sold the remainder, and owe
you 5." The miller went to the baker who said,
c Yes, I had my flour from you, but supplied you
with bread, and owe you 5." The butcher
bought his beasts from the farmer, but sold his
meat to all the village, and so they weighed up the
matter, and came to a settlement. It is quite
conceivable that the same 5 note, with a little
small change, would have passed from hand to
hand, and enabled the village to start on another
year's trading all square; if instead of the 5 note,
you had an iron bar, it really did not matter so
much in fact it was rather better, because like our
extinct gold sovereign, it was a thing of value itself,
222
o ooooooooooo oocooooococooocooooooco
FIG. 89, Late Celtic Patterns.
The Early Iron Age
which is more than can be said of the Treasury
note. Intertribal and international trade, though
more complicated, was, and still is, conducted on
this same basis, of the exchange of commodities.
It is well to remember this, when so large a part of
what is called business to-day is in reality only a
gamble with the product of other men's labour.
Real wealth springs from mother earth, and real
work is to be engaged in winning or shaping her
treasures.
We find a less extraordinary currency than the
iron bars, about 150 to 200 B.C., in a British gold
coinage of modern type of two values. This
appears to have started in the S.E., and as some of
these coins are inscribed, it shows that writing had
progressed.
The unit system of the currency bars is proof of
some system of weights and measures, and another
is given by the beautiful pots, bowls, and metal
work. A good craftsman does not make a thing
to just any odd size. Use will have shown Trim.
what is the handiest weight, and the best size. A
modern brick, for example, is of the size and weight
that experience has shown the bricklayer can
handle. Endless experiment has gone to prove
225
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
this, and all the other details of everyday work and
the tallies or the sticks, which were kept as a re-
minder, became in time recognized standards and
measurements.
The currency bars are proof of the exchange of
commodities, but do not help us to understand how
values were fixed; how much corn a plough was
worth. With such necessaries of life, the plough
was worth the extra amount of corn the farmer
could grow by its use; that would be its just price
in theory. In practice it is often regulated by
scarcity, which tends to increase the price of the
plough, or by overproduction, when the price of
ploughs goes down. Then there are luxuries, for
which people will pay more than they are worth,
because they are beautiful, or very scarce, and so
on. All this wants to be borne in mind; we shall
find how in the Middle Ages, Canon Law was very
much concerned with the Just Price and Usuiy,
and even to-day a Profiteer is not held to be a very
pleasant person. Trade and currency bars;
weights and measures; the honesty of the good man
and even the thieving of the rogue, are part of that
wonderful peep-show into the past we call History,
and cannot be neglected.
QQft
JCS5O
The Early Iron Age
Now as we are approaching the end of our space*
it may be as well to see if we can discover anything
of the animating spirit which inspired these people,
and gave savour to their everyday life. We saw in
Neolithic times how men are thought to have
worshipped the powers of Nature, with a great
Mother God over all. Gildas, a monk, writing in
the sixth century A.D., said: "Nor will I cry out
upon the mountains, fountains, or hills, or upon the
rivers, which now are subservient to the use of men,
but once were an abomination and destruction to
them, and to which the blind people paid divine
honour." Yet Nature worship still lingers with
stones which are lucky, and wells whose waters are
curative.
Sim worship appears to have been typical of the
early Bronze Age, and with the arrival of the Celts
may have taken the form of Hero worship. It is
probable that in the Early Iron Age, as the gods
became more personal and intimate, they took to
themselves as well the failings of man; as they were
stronger and braver than man, in the perpetual
warfare they waged with the powers of darkness,
so also they were more cruel and hard.
Druidism appears to have been the religion of
287
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
the later Celtic tribes of Britain and Gaul, but
doubtless it was grafted on to the Hero and Sun
worship of the Bronze Age, and the older Nature
and Moon worship of the Iberians. This has
been a very general practice; a conquering people
would be willing to place the credit of the victory
to the power of their own gods, yet unwilling to
neglect the ones who had been overthrown. A god
was a god, even when associated with defeat, and
might easily revenge himself by alliance with the
powers of Darkness. It was wiser then to run
any risks, so we find old Faiths adapted to New
Religions.
Caesar in De Betto Gallico, book vi., gives us an
interesting picture of Druids and Druidism, and
other sources of inspiration are the Celtic Myths
and Legends that Mr. Squire has gathered .together
in his book. These tales have come down to us,
because they were gathered together by monkish
chroniclers, from the twelfth to the fifteenth cen-
turies, but for all the time before that they had
been traditional in the Celtic countries, since the
days when they were first recited by Druidical
bards to the accompaniment of harps.
Caesar wrote of the Druids: "As one of their
228
The Early Iron Age
leading dogmas, they inculcate this: that souls are
not annihilated, but pass after death from one
body to another, and they hold that by this teach-
ing men are much encouraged to valour, through
disregarding the fear of death. They also discuss
and impart to the young many things concerning
the heavenly bodies and their movements, the size
of the world and our earth, natural science, and of
the influence and power of the immortal gods."
Again quoting Caesar: "The whole Gaulish na-
tion is to a great degree devoted to superstitious
rites; and on this account those who are afflicted
with severe diseases, or who are engaged in battles
and dangers, either sacrifice human beings for
victims, or vow that they will immolate them-
selves; these employ the Druids as ministers for
such sacrifices, because they think that, unless the
life of man be repaid for the life of man, the will of
the immortal gods cannot be appeased. Others
make wicker-work images of vast size, the limbs
of which they fill with living men and set on fire."
From the little that is known, it can be gathered
that the Druids formed a religious aristocracy, to
which entrance could only be gained by a long
novitiate. There was a Head, or Pope, elected for
229
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
life; they were exempt from war and taxation;
acted as judges, and had a monopoly of learning.
Time was reckoned by nights, and the year counted
by the revolutions of the moon. Fig. 88 shows
a water-clock whicfy is supposed to have been
invented by the Druids.
White bulls were sacrificed before the mistletoe
was cut from the sacred oak. Captives were
killed, and signs read from the flow of their blood,
and the palpitation of their entrails.
The Gaulish Druids looked to their British
brethren, as possessed of a purer faith, and novices
were sent here to learn the mysteries. This came
about because the Continent fell under the influ-
ence of Rome at an earlier date than we did; for the
same reason with the advent of the Romans here,
Druidism was driven into the West, because its
practices shocked even the Romans, until they
finally routed it out of its headquarters in Anglesey.
It survived in Ireland, which never fell under the
Roman influence, until St. Patrick overthrew
Cromm Cruaich.
If the Celtic legends are poisoned by hints of
awful cruelty, we must yet remember that it was
not the cruelty of the Romans, who enjoyed the
230
The Early Iron Age
killing in the Amphitheatre, but the religion of
sacrifice carried to its most awful conclusion. The
Druids were not cruel for cruelty's sake, but to
propitiate the gods.
On the other side of the picture, we have the
pleasant fact that the Celtic Myths and Legends,
becoming traditional, were handed down, and be-
came in the hands of the monkish chroniclers the
foundation on which has been built a Literature
which is entirely our own.
We have seen what great artists the Celts were,
when they turned to handicraft; their metal work,
and enamels, have been the inspiration of many an
artistic revival, hailed as new, and yet in reality
just as old as the Druids.
The great Celtic festivals were Beltaine at the
beginning of May, Midsummer Day, the Feast of
Lugh in August, and Samhain. We still have
survivals of these in May Day, St. John's Day,
Lammas, and Hallow-e'en or All Saints, and the
bonfires around which we dance on jojrf ul occasions,
started life as the sacrificial pyres on which victims
were burned to propitiate the gods, or cattle of-
fered to stay the ravages of a murrain, or plague,
at the original Celtic festivals.
281
Everyday Life in the New Stone Age
There is a poem to Cromm Cruaich in the Books
of Leinster which seems to us to explain the spirit
of the times:
"Here used to be
A high idol with many fights,
Which was named the Cromm Cruaich;
It made every tribe to be without peace.
'Twasasadevil!
Brave Gaels used to worship it.
From it they would not without tribute ask
To be satisfied as to their portion of the hard world.
*
To him without glory
They would kill their piteous, wretched offspring
With much wailing and peril,
To pour their blood around Cromm Cruaich.
Milk and corn
They would ask from him speedily
In return for one-third of their healthy issue:
Great was the horror and the scare of him."
The Books of Leinster were compiled early in the
twelfth century by Finn macGorman, Bishop of
Eildare, and he as a Christian may perhaps have
twisted the tale a little to make Cromm a slightly
worse fellow than he was, so as to emphasize the
importance of his destruction by the "good
832
The Early Iron Age
Patrick of Macha," yet on the whole there is little
doubt that in the days of the Druids, the world
was ruled by Horror.
If we understand this, it also explains how it was,
that when an obscure Jew was crucified in Pales-
tine, and left behind a handful of disciples, who
preached that God was Love, it came as a light to
lighten the darkness in a world which was horrible
to the poor and oppressed, and held little comfort
for them, and here, for a time, our story ends.
283
INDEX
Adze, 40, 185
Agger, 59
Agriculture, 89, 57
Alignment, 84
Alpine, 23
Animals, 15
Armlets, 118
Arrow-beads, 42
Aryans, 28
Awls, 118
Axes and hammers, 36, 89, 40, 193
Azilian civilization, 4
B
Badbury Kings, 59, 79
Barrow, 136, 138, 205
Beads, 206
Beaker people, 27
Belgffi, 33, 167, 209
Bellows, 181
Bermes, 60, 64
Bill-hook, 185
Boring, 40
Bread, 52
Bridge, 131
Bridles, 118, 126
Bronze, 106
Bronze Age men, 27, 102, 105
Brooches, 118, 185, 187
Brythons, 80, 167
Buckler, 114
Bulb of percussion, 34, 36
Burial, 136, 205, 206
Camps, 15
Canoes, 6, 179, 198
Carding, 119
Cattle, 15
Cave men, 4
Celtic art, 167
Celts, 28, 129
Celts, or axes, 36, 40, 102, 111
Chalk, 11
Chariots, 129, 180, 205
Chisel, 117
Cist, 136
Clocks, 210
Cothing, 48
Coal money, 192
Coldrum monument, 12
Comb, 124
Cooking hearths, 46
Coracle, 198
Core, 34
Costume, 125, 201, 202
Counterscarp, 59
Cromlech, 84
Crucibles, 181
Currency bars, 180, 221
Danish midden axe, 7
Deadfall trap, 70
Deer-horn implements, 34
Dew pond, 66
Dice, 193
Discs, 117, 137
235
Index
r' 9
_ umen, 88
Druids, 99, 228, 229
E
Earth-house, 78
Earthworks, 58
Elf darts, 45
Enamel, 201
Escarpments, 59
Eskimo huts, 82
European races, 21
F
Festivals, 281
Flakes, 84, 42
Flint flaking, 84
Flint implements, 88, 84, 85
Flint miners, 84
Flint spears, 42
Fosse, 59
G
Gaels, 28
Gate into England, 11
Glastonbury, 167, 169, 170,
179
Goidels, 27, 28, 80, 180, 164
Grinding corn, 51, 180
Hammers, 84, 86, 40, 117
Herdsmen, 12
Heroes, 81
Hill forts, 17, 18, 218
Houses, 45
Hubs, 118, 129
Hut circles, 46, 64
Huts, 182, 174, 175
Iberians, 194
Implements, 86
174,
Iron, 180
Iron Age, 168
Javelins, 42
Kitchen middens, 5
Kitscoty, 12
Knives, 113, 185
Lances, 42
Lathe, 180, 191
Leverage, 87
Loess, 144
Long barrows, 48, 77
Loom, 128
Lynchets, 89, 51
M
Maiden Castle, 58
Mediterranean, 28
Megalithic builders, 88
Megalithic monuments, 24, 78, 79,
88
Menhir, 84
Metals, 154
Migrations, 28, 28, 148
Mirror, 206
Money, 218
N
Neolithic huts, 45, 46, 47
Neolithic man, 16
Neolithic period, 17
Oppidum, 218
Ornament, 185, 202, 210
286
Index
Palisades, 64
Pattern, 57
Peytrel, 126
Picks, 34, 68
Pjcts, 51
Picts house, 82
Picts tower, 83
Pilgrims' Way, 12
Pins, 118
Pit dwelling, 45, 46
Plough, 132
Ploughing, 179
Potter's wheel, 209
Pottery, 52, 53, 57, 135, 157, 206
Pounding grain, 52
Prickers, 118
Querns, 52
Rampart, 59
Rapier, 113
Razor, 118, 125
Revetment, 66
Rings, 118, 185
River drift, 3
Rivers, 17
Roman camps, 58
S
Sacrifice, 95
Saw, 185
Scrapers, 89, 48
Shield, 114, 201
Ships, 154
Shovels, 34, 63
Sickle, 51
Skewers, 118
Slaves. 75, 81
Smelting, 47, 107, 1*1
Smith. 117
Social life. 72
Spears, 112, 201
Spindle whorls, 118, 119
Spinning, 118, 123, 188
Stonehenge, 84, 88, 89, 94, 95
Strike-a-light, 42, 51
Sun temples, 95
Swiss lake dwellings, 167
Sword, 113, 201
Teasing, 119
Terremare, 169
Tin, 154
Tongs, 118
Trackways, 16, 21, 76, 156, 218
Trade routes, 149, 150, 153
Trilithon, 84
Trumpet, 131
U
Umiak, 198
Vallum, 59
W
War, 76
Warp, 120
Warriors and chariot of the Early
Iron Age, 202, 206
Water supply, 65
Weaving, 120
Weft, 123
Wheel, 129, ISO
Worship, 227
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